Attention Span v's Attention Spend

The average attention span of the modern human being is about half as long as whatever you're trying to tell them.

—Meg Rossof

One-hundred million blogs per month. Well, make that one-hundred million and one, if you include this one.

But everybody says, "there's never been a better time to start writing online!

What? Are you crazy? With all that competition, where do I start?

Inversion! Ignore the middle ground. The action is at the long or short end. 

Marketing media recommends blog sizes of 1,500-2,000, which equates to five or so minutes of reading time.

But many writers are eschewing the norm and writing triple that at 5,000-6,000 words.

A timeless quote or philosophical words of wisdom provide the entries at the other, more concise end.

Contrarian bloggers have successfully employed both in 2020. Why?

The cognitive overloaded, hand-held computer age dictates that attention span and attention spend are the new battlegrounds.

A shortening attention span requiring the control of attention spend.

Short, thus makes sense. Time is money. Give me what I need, like a strong shot of espresso, and I’m off. It makes sense, right? Low attention span requirement. Job well done.

But what about the longer piece. The mini-essay, book chapter style blog. You said attention span is waning! Attention-spend now takes centre stage.

While a tad 'meh' about reading another churn blog, people actively pay attention or money, and sometimes both, for longer blogs.

Figuring the time it takes someone to write is at least 50-100X the time it takes to read, the value exchange now looks relatively favourable for the reader. 

Throw in a little rebranding of the longer content–like ‘newsletters’, ‘articles’, ‘white papers’ [isn't all paper, white?] and ‘journals’ to help signal– 'this is worth your attention spend.'

The fight for attention is one of the biggest battles currently being waged. Choose your weapons carefully and wage war!!