Adam Daniel Mezei's posterous

 

I’ve been methodically making my way through the opening sections of Sally Hogshead’s FASCINATE: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation. Sally was kind enough to send me a copy up from Orlando recently, and her chapter entitled “Fascination and the Media” is full of several excellent passages about audience engagement, which I thought – in particular for indies of all stripes – was absolutely priceless.

Hogshead plots “fascination” or audience involvement/engagement along a 10-step continuum, from being entirely disinterested and uninvolved to a state of near-euphoric compulsion.

The 10 steps (in order) are:

1. Avoidance.
2. Disinterest.
3. Neutrality.
4. Mild affinity.
5. Interest.
6. Engagement.
7. Immersion.
8. Preoccupation.
9. Obsession.
10. Compulsion.

 

All this says a lot for independent artists and filmmakers and their ability (or failure) to engage their unique (or “true”) audiences by enticing or coaxing them along a desired path, to get them to do the thing you’d like them to. The “call to action.”

Whether it’s:

• to buy that Special Edition CD/DVD of your independently-produced, independently-performed music or film.
• to submit their email address to your mailing list so they can stay abreast of the latest changes at your site and happenings.
• to share all links to your film or band site, to your Facebook Fan Page, your URL, or to favorable press coverage.
• to attend a live event where your film shall be screened in conjunction with local short filmmakers or other cross-partnering opportunities.
• to attend panel sessions stacked with industry experts who speak extensively about their craft to packed houses.

 

On Ignoring:

It’s one thing to get audiences to cease ignoring you.

Once you’ve spent yourself silly getting them to pay finally attention to your message, you’re not nearly done yet! This is just the first baby step in a colossally arduous process you only hope (and intend) will end in a sale, or in complimentary press coverage, or ultimately in some other  desired outcome.

To rise above the slag heap of – literally — the tens of thousands of other projects in the space demands a tremendous amount of propulsion. Something celeb blogger Chris Brogan craftily refers to as “escape velocity.”

This stage is the equivalent of the online “hello.”

To forget or not to forget – now that’s the real issue:

Now that your target audience isn’t ignoring you, the question you need to ask is thus: are they remembering your message when they’re supposed to? In other words, are they not forgetting you?

Attempting to keep your audience in top-of-mind awareness entails a completely different slew of tasks and responsibilities that – once again – involves yet more expenditure and aggravation. By this second stage, you’re likely not working as hard as at the beginning, yet this is still no time to rest on your laurels, Hogshead writes.

And finally, influence. Or is it?

In a perfect world, if you’ve correctly done your homework during these first two stages you’ll have successfully influenced your audience. They’ll have fulfilled at least some favorable intended action that pits you further along your intended path.

Lest you think getting to this third and final stage is a cinch, be prepared for a grueling battle in the trenches.

It’s a slugfest. It’s wildly competitive. And the attention span of the average adult by 2011 is projected to below half-a-minute flat, so if you’re not lightning swift out of the starting blocks you’re already dead in the water.

So may the best project win?