The longer you have someone’s attention, the more likely you are to build trust. After all, that’s the goal, right? So how do you gain someone’s attention (and keep it) while not seeking it so to speak. Truth is, there are a lot of people ‘teaching’ how to create curiosity about your business – we get it. But, what we also see is a lot of poorly done posts that do more attention seeking than curiosity piquing, in our opinion.
So, what’s the difference anyways?
Attention Seeking doesn’t belong in your Business
You know the ones, we know you do. These are the posts that are littered with overused emojis and buzz words. They are the ones that scream copy and paste from my upline or team group. We see these ones typically around the end of the month even.
Sounding more familiar?
Or, they’re the posts that tell a catastrophic (embellished) tale summarized with ‘my miracle cream I just bought fixed it all!‘. And hey, we’re not knocking that there are some pretty incredible products out there in the world of network marketing, but let’s keep ourselves a little grounded shall we?
And, we do believe there’s a fine line between the two.
Maybe even a blurred one.
But, we believe that when you know how to create posts piquing curiosity versus posts that come across more attention seeking like, your business will shift.
The primary reason is that people will start to take you more seriously. It comes across more professional, natural, seamless and real. When your products are incredible, or your compensation plan is out of this world … they will speak for themselves. Without of course the fictional story to go with them.
Curiosity Piquing Perfection
The two elements that lead to increased engagement, social media sharing, and the whole I gotta have it now impulse are meaning and fascination.
Let’s dive in a bit deeper.
Meaning: This is the informational part of your content that your audience expect from you. This is also a topic that matters to the target audience you’re trying to reach through social media.
Another way to think of this important aspect of your content is how relevant is your content to your audience? Content must be interesting or relevant to your existing and prospective audience, but I prefer meaning, as it deliver an extra level of value that makes people relate and connect with you.
Fascination: The fascinating part of your content is where your creativity comes through. It’s the fun, shocking, or entertaining components of your content. It is here, that makes people pay attention and share with their friends and followers.
Often you’re using an analogy, lesson, teachable moment or short story to make a connection. This could be between something exciting and an important topic that might otherwise be pretty boring. Not only does this attract and hold their attention, it also helps in comprehension and retention of your audience, which in turn increases your subject-matter authority with them.
Why?
Because they actually learn something they can take away with them.
Why is Curiosity Piquing so hard to ‘get right’?
Starting from our need to gather information to make sense of things, curiosity can have us glued to things like puzzles and games for hours. Or, finish books we don’t enjoy, or bounce from article to article Google resulting in a completely lost morning or afternoon, right?
However, curiosity has been the driving force behind the greatest discoveries in science and technology.
And yet, the sudden curiosity to read the latest celebrity scandal on the magazine in the grocery store can disappear as soon as you finish paying. (providing of course you didn’t purchase it)
So how can you trigger that same curiosity and turn it into action such as your audience inquiring for more, downloading your latest PDF or checking out the link you may have posted.
An in depth study was conducted through professors in economics combined with psychology, and discovered that the peak combination for triggering a high level of curiosity included:
- Violating the right expectations
- Tickling the gap of information
- Knowing when to stop
Let’s break these down a little more, shall we?
Violating the Right Expectations
These are titles or posts that create the *gasp* reaction from the reader. Titles like; Find out how she recruited 50 people in 10 days! Where a title that reads; ‘Find out how she recruited people!’ isn’t nearly as exciting. When you are violating the right expectations you are going beyond the norm.
As we have shared this before, Facebook Live titles are super important, right? They need to catch the viewers attention which will prompt them to view. This is where your an implement this strategy effectively.
Additionally, these are great attention grabbers for PDF downloads you may offer your audience.
Tickling the Gap of Information
In most cases, violating the right expectations on your quest of curiosity piquing isn’t enough. And so, in comes tickling the gap. The human brain is such an interesting thing. For example; if you have a headline that reads along the lines of ‘Tune into hear 3 tips about Recruiting’. If the reader (audience) already knows 3 tips they may omit tuning in.
However, when you add something creative like; ‘Tune in to hear my 3 tips about recruiting I learned from my 6 year old‘…. you guessed it — people are more inclined to tune in. Why? Because you’ve tickled them with something a little different.
You’ve piqued their curiosity enough that they want to know how on earth you learned something so challenging like recruiting, from a 6 year old.
Knowing when to Stop
Stop overdoing it! This is where the lines start to become a bit blurred between curiosity piquing and attention seeking. Or, flat out spammy. It is fantastic you want to share a story about your journey or business, but small doses is plenty. Additionally, when you break your content into smaller doses it’s a win for you too! This creates more content for you to deliver and more content for your audience to consume.
Especially when you are using social media as your platform to create curiosity, give a little detail close with a solid piece of curiosity and keep it moving. You want to dangle the carrot a little not give away the bunch.
Think about the things that make you curious!
Chances are, your audience is probably people quite similar to you. So, when you are writing your curiosity piquing posts ask yourself how you would respond if it were in your timeline. Would you be inclined to reach out? Keep scrolling? Inquire about more information? Get into the habit of putting yourself in your audience’s shoes and keeping focused on your goal with the post itself.
We hope this post was super helpful and we would love to hear how curiosity piquing content is going for you!
