Businesses don’t need people window shopping, they need customers.
Business, at its core, is all conversion and its rates of process. Those that contest this immutable notion are not successful enough in business to know its basics as well as its contradictions. Those that don’t know the rudiments of a discipline are sure to randomize metrics with no continuity to provide the result needed for a result of any kind.
A one-to-one example of ignorance in terms of conversion in business and how it translates is the framework around social media (not the internet). The internet has endless positive possibilities while social media is a fractal of that possibility imagined. Making this core distinction is relevant to understanding the correlation of social media not capitalizing on the opportunity cost of the internet and business.
The internet has clearly panned out to be the new television set for us all. Therefore, like radio, television, and, now, social media; it’s all about how much attention can be gained and — most importantly — retained. The barriers to entry for advertising are now completely non-existent. Due to social media (not the internet), what has unintentionally changed is perception, not behavior. Our Behavioral RNA™️ doesn’t change, nor does our tendency of following others who follow others. What has changed is how we interact with the age-old power of public performance.
The antiquated form of public performance ranged from theatre plays, movies, radio, public speech, social gatherings, phone conversations, business meetings (whether one-on-one or in a group), and recitals. Today we have the new digital recital — profiles — and proof of concept with little to no fact-checking. This has allowed us as a society to stretch our truth so far that the modern-day “facts” are strong popular opinions from the public eye. That in itself lacks assessment as the public eye lacks duality. It only sees things one way. It is a singular thought process that is void of justice, truth, and the pursuit of anyone’s happiness.
Without understanding the true measurement and, in turn, metrics of the public eye, the probability of seeing 20/20 spoke for itself. For those who lived in that year (2020), the universe showed us all that perception is not reality for any of us. In order to find true order, we need each other. People will always need people because no one individual can do anything alone. This seems like the most appropriate time to quote one of my favorite rappers (outside of Biggie, Tupac, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, and Rakim). J. Cole said, “the good news is you came a long way. The bad news is you went the wrong way.”
Our current individualist approach to the world and ourselves will only ever amount to what we want/desire. It will never give us what we need. What we need is an ecosystem that works for those that understand intrinsically that passion, performance, and marketing/advertising alone doesn’t create the best business practices. What creates best business practices is both teaching and learning that a customer that views your product outside your digital storefront will only ever be a potential buyer. In order to convert a potential buyer to the action needed to qualify as a business, one must deliver on a true need, not just a performance.
In the 1920s a surge in the popularity of investing drove share prices up to unprecedented heights. In my view, this mirrors the trajectory of the impact of the internet on entertainment in the 21st century. These events changed the global landscape of the common man forever.
The attention economy is not as it seems in this day and age of content over-saturation. Before streaming and social media, all people had to focus on in terms of popular entertainment was television and radio. The availability had an inverse relationship to the impact. It meant much more because it was more scarce. There was a direct correlation between what you saw and what you purchased because it was very fine-tuned and your attention wasn’t diffused across multiple other platforms simultaneously and throughout the day.
Now anyone with a phone can see your content at any time, so one has to digest it. One could argue that the increased availability allows niche content to connect with niche audiences, and that is a valid point, but the degree to which the audience is more distracted than in the past counterbalances the benefit.
Today it’s relative viewership. We must understand what a “view” really means in this day and age. Everyone has the potential to view. That has to be in direct proportion to their comprehension. A million viewers today is not the same as when NBC brought in a million viewers when all we had were a fixed set of channels on cable. While viewership in the traditional media landscape and viewership in the streaming and social media landscape may parallel, the quality of viewership will never intersect.
Yes, people may be viewing a creator’s content but they’re not purchasing it or interacting with it at the scale that it is perceived to be as the conversion of a typical view does not translate 1:1 to a transaction, much less its retention. The metrics of retention as well as converting to action (view-to-purchase ratio) in most circumstances if not all — including traditional celebrities today — are far off from viewership. In an environment with infinitely more choice, what has suffered most is the quality and over-valuation of the attention. Attention today is like inflated currency. You can still trade with it, but it’s not worth what it used to be. To continue to prioritize attention metrics over conversion metrics is a fundamental misstep that will differentiate business professionals from those who have a professional hobby.
