Attention Business Model - A Breakdown
Where there is attention, there is a business model.
Commerce thrives off of the attention of audiences. If a person, a place, or an experience captures an audience’s attention, there’s money to be made. Let me give you a few examples.
Influencer
If an influencer has cultivated an engaged audience, there’s revenue to be made for the influencer, and for partners of the influencer. This is as unfiltered as it gets in our modern age. Influencers can run ads on their channels, be featured in brand ad campaigns, be paid just to use a product, or say thanks to sponsors of their content. Influencers can make great money from brands this way–but only because brands make money too. When brands collaborate with influencers, they do so to tap into a new audience, with ripe attention. Brands know they aren’t cool. Brands know influencers are cool, and that audiences are paying attention to them. So if a brand can associate itself with an influencer, reaching their audience, they know that move will pay dividends.
Marketplace
If a marketplace attracts enough people, there’s a business model there. There’s a hip flea market in Venice Beach called Artists & Fleas. It’s right on Abbot Kinney, one of the hippest streets in the city, on the lawn of an elementary school. The elementary school makes money by leasing the space to Artists & Fleas. Artists & Fleas makes money by selling spots to artisans who want to sell at the flea market. The artisans make money by selling their goods on a super hip street without having to pay $15,000 each month in rent. This model doesn’t work if there’s no attention–a cheaper elementary school lawn in rural Oklahoma wouldn’t yield nearly the same results. Because there’s no attention.
Communication Hub
A communication hub becomes a business model when there’s enough attention around it. Authors with big email lists can sell books because their audience is paying attention. Home chefs with recipe blogs can recommend a product and get it sold for a brand because they have their audience’s attention. A newspaper can actively promote a brand with an ad, or passively promote a a brand with a positive PR story. It’s easy to imagine a messenger, in the days before the printing press, spinning a message the way he thinks it should go. When people get their communications from somewhere, there’s power and an opportunity in that communication hub.
It’s worth noting that just because there are eyeballs, or foot traffic, or followers, that doesn’t always mean there’s genuine attention. Attention is won through generosity. Spam text blasts, and fake followers, and sidewalk hustles don’t create sustainable businesses. Genuine attention is needed for that.
Good luck out there!
