00:00:01
this podcast is brought to you by knowledge of Wharton [Music] welcome to knowledge of Wharton I'm
00:00:14
Angie bassini if you're a content creator of any sort whether you're a marketer an Advertiser or an influencer
00:00:20
you're going to want to hear this next conversation about language and how to
00:00:24
craft it to hold your audience's attention I'm with Wharton marketing Professor Jonah Berger and his latest
00:00:29
paper is titled what holds attention linguistic drivers of Engagement Jonah thanks for coming on thanks so much for
00:00:37
having me back let's talk about an overview first of This research uh you at this point in
00:00:43
the paper that it really isn't enough to capture people's attention that you have
00:00:46
to sustain it in order for them to hear the message that you're trying to hit
00:00:51
um so talk to us about about this paper and what it means yeah so it's often said that we live in
00:00:56
the attention economy and what that means is we only have so much attention we can't pay attention to seven
00:01:02
different things at once we're paying attention to one thing that means like
00:01:05
we're not paying attention to something else and so whether we're talking about
00:01:08
the workplace whether we're talking about acquiring customers whether talking about our personal lives getting
00:01:13
and holding attention is key to success and so the question then becomes how do we win in this attention economy right
00:01:19
and we're constantly trying to get and hold others attention uh you know as a
00:01:24
sales person you're trying to get people's attention and hold it through
00:01:26
the pitch as a leader you want people to pay attention to your presentations and
00:01:30
your emails as a colleague you want people to pay attention to your ideas post on social media we write briefs and
00:01:36
emails and other types of content even in HR and compliance right they send out information wanting people to pay
00:01:42
attention wanting to hold folks attention but it doesn't always work and so one question is well how can we get
00:01:48
better at that how can we write content that's more likely to hold attention and
00:01:52
how in doing so can we be more successful in while this paper talks about something
00:01:57
that you call processing ease which is simply the amount of cognitive work that it takes to read something how does that
00:02:03
relate to creating content that draws people's attention yeah so stepping back
00:02:09
for a second we analyzed tens of thousands of pieces of content from a variety of different websites and news
00:02:15
providers everything from newspapers to more blog sites everything from you know
00:02:20
front page political news to sports to weather to personal uh sorts of things all types of content and we analyze how
00:02:29
far down people consume that content so if you think about it right you open up an article online sometimes we read the
00:02:35
whole thing sometimes we read half of it sometimes we read the title and we stop
00:02:39
reading it and go on to doing something else we all know the title is important for getting attention right if we think
00:02:44
on social for example the image and the headline is going to be what gets people
00:02:48
to click into something you know think about SEO and the right search words to get people to to open something to pay
00:02:54
attention to it initially but if we want that content to impact people if we want
00:02:59
them to understand what we're communicating if we want them to get our new strategy if we want them to buy the
00:03:03
product or service it's hard to do that if they don't stay tuned for the rest of
00:03:07
the pitch and so what we're interested is what keeps people reading not just
00:03:10
what leads them to open something but what what keeps them reading and so analyzing these tens of thousands of
00:03:15
pieces of content controlling for what type of topic it focused on or how that headline was written we're just in ways
00:03:21
of writing that that holds people's attention and as you mentioned we found two key buckets that had a big impact
00:03:27
the first was something called processing ease and the second relates to emotion and so the simplest way to
00:03:33
think about processing is essentially how easy is it to consume this content now and most of us probably don't think
00:03:40
about this very often but sometimes we're Reading Writing and it just it feels like it flows it goes together
00:03:44
really well it's really easy to read it's sort of an effortless process other
00:03:49
times we find ourselves reading something and sort of it just feels difficult even if we're interested in
00:03:54
the topic we can't see seem to slog through it just because it feels like a lot of work what we don't realize is
00:04:00
that's in the writing that's not just a subjective feeling the writing is
00:04:03
creating that subjective feeling so things for example like how familiar the words are more familiar words make
00:04:09
content easier to process take something really simple like the word car versus automobile like both of those are words
00:04:16
that we know they're not completely unfamiliar right but the word car is something we hear a lot more often than
00:04:22
the word automobile it's just in more familiar word and that familiarity makes
00:04:26
it easier to to process similarly concreteness linguistic concreteness also makes things easier to read imagine
00:04:33
I said something is happening soon versus something is happening tomorrow tomorrow's a much more concrete specific
00:04:39
word I know exactly when that thing is going to happen concreteness often relates to whether we can form a mental
00:04:45
image of something and so there are ways of writing to make things more concrete
00:04:49
and so these are just a couple of the features we identified that shape processing ease but but the key Insight
00:04:54
here is subtle shifts in writing can make it easier to move through the content which makes people more likely
00:05:00
to continue moving through and read what we like community I 100 agree especially in my former life
00:05:06
as a news journalist in fact you the words that we're talking about made me think of the things I learned as a
00:05:10
journalist which is never use the word utilized use the word uses you know things like that car versus automobile
00:05:16
um it's it's most definitely key because you don't want people to get lost in the
00:05:20
words you want them to hear the message read the message correct yeah and even some people step up with syntax right so
00:05:27
this is something we never think about and so I don't want to get too far on
00:05:29
the weeds here but we looked at sort of aspects of the syntax that make it easier to keep consuming the content
00:05:35
right I don't know if you've ever experienced this but sometimes you read
00:05:37
something and the sentence structure there's one type of structure in one sentence and a different type of
00:05:42
structure the next ends that makes it more difficult to move through the content and so everything from the words
00:05:47
we use the structure we use all of these things can shape how easy it is to consume the content and so How likely
00:05:53
people are to keep reading I used to have an editor that would go come on it ain't Shakespeare so there you go let's
00:05:59
talk about something else that you bring up in your paper which is emotional language and I was actually kind of
00:06:03
surprised to find that you say that when you use language that makes people feel
00:06:07
uneasy or uncertain that actually engages their attention a little bit more so can you explain that for you
00:06:13
sure yeah so you might think it's it's good for people to feel certain right
00:06:17
and what does that mean well certain means you kind of know what's going going to happen right um I think about a
00:06:22
score of a baseball game right when when you get the score you have a sense of certainty you now know who's going to
00:06:26
win um if it's the score at the end of the game and and certainty is great in
00:06:30
some ways right um in other projects for example we've shown benefits of certainty in a variety of different ways
00:06:36
certainty can often be persuasive right the more certain we are in our language the more it seems like we know what
00:06:41
we're talking about and so it can persuade others but but here's the challenge certainty doesn't hold
00:06:46
attention right imagine you're watching a basketball game right would you be
00:06:50
more likely to keep watching if the outcome of the game you already knew or if you didn't already know the outcome
00:06:56
of the game and I think that's a pretty easy answer right you'd sit there going
00:06:59
well hold on if I if I don't know the outcome of the game I want to keep watching to find out who wins and if I
00:07:04
do know the outcome of the game I might keep watching but eventually I know who wins I don't need to stay tuned to find
00:07:09
out and that's exactly the same with with language more generally right right
00:07:13
when we use a lot of certainty in our language people feel like the puzzle is solved they don't need to keep reading
00:07:19
they don't need to keep paying attention whereas they use a little bit more uncertainty people are like wow I don't
00:07:24
actually know how this is going to resolve right it's a little bit more like a mystery opening up an idea of a
00:07:28
curiosity Gap and so people are more likely to keep consuming the content to figure out what what happens and so
00:07:35
again it depends on what our goals are right if we just want to get across a high level idea or maybe we put in the
00:07:41
title of the first paragraph and that's it but if we want people to keep consuming a number of ideas to get to
00:07:46
the big punch line we can't give away that big punch line right away and so emotional language does that not just
00:07:51
certainty in general but certain emotions are more certain than than others if you think about anger versus
00:07:57
anxiety for example both are negative neither feels good right both feeling angry and feeling anxious or negative
00:08:03
feelings but when we feel angry we usually know what we're angry about we're angry about a very specific thing
00:08:09
the airline canceled my flight I'm pissed off at them when we're anxious
00:08:13
it's a little bit more of a diffuse State we're not always certain why we're
00:08:17
anxious we have a feeling of anxiety but we feel uncertain in part because we don't know if something's going to
00:08:22
happen we're anxious whether our right is going to be canceled and so that uncertainty leads to paying attention to
00:08:27
everything that's going on what what announcement did the airline make what is this flight attendant doing we're
00:08:32
more likely to pay attention or resolve that uncertainty same on the positive side hope versus excitement right um
00:08:38
usually if you're excited about something you know what's going to happen if you're hopeful you want it to
00:08:42
happen but you're not sure and so subtle differences in how we write content can
00:08:47
be more likely to make people feel a little bit more uncertain and lead them to be more like pay attention
00:08:52
that makes perfect sense let's talk about one more aspect of emotional language that you mentioned in the paper
00:08:57
and that is arousal Mr Burger what do you mean by that yeah so around one basically how fired up we are so I think
00:09:03
a good way to to think about this is you know imagine you're for going for a walk
00:09:07
in the woods and you see a snake a big snake sort of sliding right across your path whoa you know your body post
00:09:14
quickens your heart beats faster you are ready to take an action that's the idea
00:09:18
of physiological arousal right we're fired up we're ready to take an action
00:09:21
we're ready to to run we're ready to take an action to do something and so
00:09:25
some emotions like anger anxiety or also excitement or humor High arousal whether
00:09:31
other emotions things like contentment or sadness or low arousal and we find that more emotions Associated arousal
00:09:38
keep people consuming content similar to the ideal uncertainty right they're a
00:09:41
little more Vigilant they're paying attention to figure out what what's going on
00:09:45
um and they're more likely to take action continuing to consume the content these are just really really great tips
00:09:52
if you think about crafting your message writing um pres any type of presentation
00:09:56
to keep your audience engaged there's there's a number of number of contributions that this paper makes so
00:10:01
one of them that you mentioned very briefly I really would love to talk to you about which is the the critical role
00:10:07
that language plays in the issues that we're facing now in society which is disinformation uh hate speech other
00:10:13
types of social issues can you touch on that a little bit yeah you know I I think sometimes we see
00:10:18
things that are shared online um we see content that's engaging and we think it's sort of random luck or chance
00:10:25
right uh oh you know I wish people wouldn't share misinformation or hate speech or things along those lines but
00:10:31
but the way that content is designed it's not just about people right it's
00:10:35
about the way the content itself is designed certain content is written in a way that's more engaging certain content
00:10:41
is written in a way that's more likely to be shared certain content is written
00:10:44
in a way that makes us believe it even when it's not true and so there's really
00:10:49
a behavioral science behind these things and the more we understand about why people share what makes content more
00:10:55
likely to hold attention uh the more like we understand these factors the more we can design content and systems
00:11:01
to to decrease the chance that these things occur great point last big question what is
00:11:07
the takeaway what is the thing that marketers advertisers Tick Tock influencers need to know from this paper
00:11:12
you know I think there's a really simple but very important takeaway here which
00:11:16
is most of us as communicators think that the effectiveness of our communication is all about the topic the
00:11:23
focus the main theme or idea right you might be sitting there going what holds attention you know celebrity gossip
00:11:29
um and sports scores hold attention but environmental news and um you know tax policy and climate change these are just
00:11:36
topics that no one's going to pay attention to and so if I'm writing about
00:11:39
one of these things I'm kind of out of luck there's nothing I can do um but the idea here is that good
00:11:44
writing right is not about the topic it's not that that engaging content is all about the topic style how we write
00:11:50
can compensate for it in our research for example we show even controlling for the topic of the Articles how they're
00:11:56
written right shapes whether or not they hold attention so sure certain things do
00:12:00
naturally uh more likely to hold attention Sports technology person all sorts of things are generally more
00:12:07
likely to hold attention than world news that said if they're written the right
00:12:11
way you can make anything more likely to hold attention and the impact of of writing style and how you write is just
00:12:17
as big if not bigger than than the topic and so writing in the right way can increase sustained attention even for
00:12:23
Less engaging time you gotta put some cheese on the broccoli to get it down completely agree Jonah thanks for being
00:12:30
here I really appreciate it and before I let you go I do want to mention uh because you are the master of words uh
00:12:36
if you uh wouldn't mind telling us a little bit about your latest book magic
00:12:40
words oh yeah sure so um uh you know I don't have to tell you as we've talked
00:12:45
about today that that language is a part of almost everything we do right it's
00:12:48
how leaders make presentations it's how colleagues send emails it's how sales
00:12:52
people pitch ideas um it's how marketers craft ads and content that we talk to our spouses and
00:12:58
our children but while we spend a lot of time to think about the ideas we want to
00:13:01
communicate we spend a lot less time thinking about the words we can use and just like we talked about today those
00:13:06
words have a big impact and so um in magic word they talk about different ways we can use language to increase our
00:13:12
impact whether it's holding attention persuading others deepening social connection or being more effective sales
00:13:18
great it's called magic words what to say to get your way love that title you
00:13:23
can download it anywhere books are sold thank you for joining me if you enjoyed this conversation you can find more just
00:13:28
like it on our website where you can also find all our articles on the latest research in business for knowledge award
00:13:33
and I'm Angie bassini thanks for joining us for more insight from knowledge of
00:13:37
Wharton please visit knowledge.worton.upen.edu [Music]