---
title: "Day Trading Attention: Why Attention Matters"
url: https://stacklist.com/card/dd82f1e4-2697-4652-8ca5-6b516293769f
source_url: "https://community.squareup.com/t5/Square-Readers-Book-Club/Day-Trading-Attention-Why-Attention-Matters/m-p/750921"
stack: https://stacklist.com/stack/43c2b463-371a-4946-b84a-978c083f4bbd
summary: "A Square Readers Book Club discussion on Gary Vaynerchuk's 'Day Trading Attention' explores why consumer attention matters and how to identify underpriced platforms for marketing. The content emphasizes finding where people focus their attention, creating relevant content that builds brand connection, and understanding platform dynamics to effectively reach target audiences."
tags: "day-trading-attention, social-media-marketing, content-strategy, brand-relevance, gary-vaynerchuk, attention-economy, underpriced-attention"
key_entities: "Gary Vaynerchuk (person), Dina L Rosenberg (person), PessoAlumni (person), Facebook (technology), Instagram (technology), YouTube (technology), LinkedIn (technology), underpriced-attention (concept), brand-relevance (concept), Square Readers Book Club (event), day-trading-attention (concept)"
classification: "transcript"
content_hash: "sha256:aeb199608f8386ead551f719a4add0bb2a708c8ea6a261738add540040852891"
acp_version: "0.2"
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status: "final"
---

# Day Trading Attention: Why Attention Matters

All community This group hub This board Knowledge base Users cancel Turn on suggestions Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. Showing results for Search instead for Did you mean: Home > Community Archive > Public Archive > Archived Groups (Read Only) > Square Readers Book Club > Forum > Re: Day Trading Attention: Why Attention Matters PessoAlumni ‎09-09-2024 06:16 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page Day Trading Attention: Why Attention Matters Hey Square Readers,    We hope you’ve started to dive into reading Day Trading Attention by Gary Vaynerchuk ! Last week @DinaLRosenberg kicked things off with a baseline discussion on your own experiences with social media in your business.    Today we’re starting with the basics of the book, covering the Introduction and Chapter 1, which break down why consumer attention matters, the importance of working to get it, and how to think about creating content that can gain that attention.      While the book leans heavily on social media, it’s not just about that; it teaches the framework of looking for new, unique, and underpriced places where people spend their attention, and the strategies to gain those views.    “Just as a day trader constantly studies financial markets to keep a pulse on what’s happening, you must constantly study what people are paying attention to, the cost associated with capturing that attention, and how it shifts by the day. This is how you’ll find the best marketing and sales strategies for your business or brand. Think of it this way: If you know what people are paying attention to and where they’re paying attention, then you actually have a shot at selling them something… Underpriced attention isn’t just about what advertising medium is the cheapest; it’s about whether you can get a low cost relative to the amount of actual attention you’d get.”   He observes that people tend to stick to what’s worked in the past or what might work, rather than focusing on what is actually working right now. He describes the value of promoting your brand on social media in today’s landscape:   “Today, mass consumer attention sits across a handful of social media platforms, which happen to have literally zero cost for organic reach (the number of people who will see your content if you just post it, without running it as an ad). That’s why social media can be one of the best places to capture underpriced attention. For example, Facebook has an estimated 3 billion monthly active users at the time of writing. Instagram and YouTube each have roughly over 2 billion, and LinkedIn has 930 million members.”   It is, however, not as easy as simply posting absolutely anything and expecting massive positive results. You have to work to understand the platforms, what people are consuming, and what they care enough about to actually buy. Without that, you can be wasting your time and effort. What you make needs to be relevant and meaningful to your target audience.   “Often people subconsciously buy things because the brand or business means something to them. In other words, they decide that a certain product or service is more relevant to their needs or to who they are. That is the power of “brand” at work … content alone is not enough; content that scales brand relevance is the goal. Relevance is defined as “a close connection with the subject you are discussing or the situation you are in.” We need to tell stories that help people feel closely connected to our businesses and brands.”   The author put together a list of the many factors to consider when creating and posting content in order to be as relevant as possible. He breaks these down later in the book.    “The more relevant your content is to an audience, the more your content will be distributed by the platform itself… For content to be relevant and drive business results, it needs to be more strategic and thoughtful than ever before. You need to consider variables like:  -- What time are you posting?  -- What title do you have as a text overlay on your video?  -- Who are you making your piece of content for? Why should they be interested in consuming it?  -- If you post a video on TikTok, how are you tweaking it before you post on, say, YouTube Shorts? Is your post caption (aka copy) optimized?  -- What creative units are you using? (Creative units are different content creation features on platforms, like stories, carousels, Reels on Instagram, or status updates on Facebook.)  -- What creative styles are you using? (Meaning, ways of displaying content within creative units, such as a skit on Instagram Reel.)  -- How are you deciding what piece of content to run as a paid ad?  -- Are your profiles on each platform optimized correctly so people know what you do, and how to contact you?  -- How can you use insights from social media content to inform larger advertising strategies, such as trade shows, TV commercials, or higher-production videos?”   Further, he describes what he calls “the Tiktokification of Social Media,” in that almost every other social media platform has begun to adopt the way that the social media app TikTok elevates posts to its users.    “TikTok has been the largest champion of the interest graph model, and its execution of the “For You” page … The content that TikTok surfaces there is based on the unique preferences of each user. TikTok considers videos you like or share, how long you watch videos, comments you post, and even the types of content you create … all these factors are processed by TikTok’s recommendation engine and weighted… The algorithm learns each user’s consumption patterns and adjusts their feed’s content based on how those consumption patterns change over time. In other words, their content feed is led by the interest graph (what you’re interested in), rather than the social graph (who you follow).”   This has tremendous potential and benefit for you as a business owner trying to grab the attention of potential customers.   “Platforms are incentivized to distribute content that’s relevant and valuable to the end consumer. This means that if you make content and advertising that people actually want to watch, you’ll be rewarded with more views and engagement. The opportunity for organic reach is virtually unlimited. The more relevant your content is, the more reach you’ll get… Now businesses, creators, and brands don’t need to have a follower base before they can start getting views and engagement. You could create an account on any social platform in this book today, post some content over the course of this week, and you actually have a shot at getting thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of views. It just depends on whether your content is good enough or not. Learn to make compelling, relevant content at scale and the platform will distribute your content to people who are interested in consuming it.”   But now that you have this unlimited potential, how do you actually know and find out what is appealing and attention grabbing?   “Fortunately, you don’t have to guess. With interest-graph-driven algorithms, you can find out the truth for yourself for zero additional cost (beyond what it takes to make the creative itself). Make a piece of content based on who you want to reach and what you think they might be interested in seeing, post it on one or more platforms of your choice, and look at your post analytics and comments to see what happens. Did it do better than your account’s average performance? Did it do worse? Who did the platform end up serving it to, based on your analytics (in other words, who was actually interested in consuming it versus who you thought would be interested in consuming it)? Any interesting observations in the comments? You can use all these observations to make your next piece of content even better.”   We’d love to hear your answer in the comments: What underpriced attention & marketing platforms (social media or otherwise) have you used in your business? How successful has it been? What initial ideas do you have to take advantage of the interest based system for promoting your business?   Feel free to share any other thoughts you have about this book. We can’t wait to hear your thoughts in the comments below!   Don’t forget to: View and Subscribe to all threads about this book RSVP to our Live Discussion – Tactic Talk: Social Media   Happy reading, Pesso   ️ Aylon Pesso , he/him Small Business Evangelist, Square Join the Square Readers Book Club Watch the Let's Talk Business Interviews Labels: Labels: Day Trading Attention Reply Subscribe 1 Kudo Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,916 Views Message 1 of 8 Report All forum topics Previous Thread Next Thread 7 REPLIES 7 CareyJo ‎09-09-2024 07:12 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page We've only used FB, as I've mentioned before because IG doesn't lend well to our business.  I've also used our small town, local newspapers.  I pay $30 a month for a weekly 2" square ad and $110 a month for a full color, biz card size ad for 10 weeks.  I feel they are both underpriced but I'm definitely not going to pay more than they're asking.  But what I like about it besides the price is that I'm supporting local papers - not just locally produced but locally owned and operated.  They don't have huge budgets and far too many people balk at them about raising prices.  Living in small town MT has its advantages... I actually get about 50% of our new customers from my FB posts or those two ads.  The other 50% come from word of mouth.   Unfortunately, I haven't gotten any new ideas yet.... but I will keep you posted! Owner/Business Manager Arctic Heat R&C Property Management Event Planner/Business Trainer Member - Women in HVACR Member - NAWIC; Mentorship Chair for MT Chapter Square Champions Expert Reply Subscribe 2 Kudos Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,885 Views Message 2 of 8 Report PessoAlumni ‎09-09-2024 09:08 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page In response to CareyJo That definitely sounds like a reasonable price for traditional print advertising -- and even better that you've gotten consistently been getting clients coming through it. Definitely an advantage of small towns!   Do you have any stats on this to be able to figure out your cost per client? Like data on the distribution of the newspapers, how may people get it / read it, how many leads you get directly from this, and compare it to your total cost over time?    That's a really good point that you're also supporting local businesses by advertising there -- a nice secondary win!    Do you do any seasonal campaigns anywhere? Like if you know that homeowners tend to test out & find out that their HVAC aren't working properly in May/June when the weather starts to get warmer, then doing specific campaigns (either on social or elsewhere) reminding people to test their system out before the heat comes, and then you're on their mind for service and coudl potentially do it before your busiest time.    For other potential attention focused places -- have you tried posting in some other more forum based places? Whether it's private groups on facebook like neighborhood groups, or apps like NextDoor, or anything else where you could position yourselves as experts and share some tips and attract new clients (if you have space in your schedule)? ️ Aylon Pesso , he/him Small Business Evangelist, Square Join the Square Readers Book Club Watch the Let's Talk Business Interviews Reply Subscribe 0 Kudos Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,858 Views Message 3 of 8 Report CareyJo ‎09-10-2024 07:01 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page In response to PessoAlumni I have no idea what cost per client would be... but we've been spending the same amount now for 5 years I think.  I'd have to look back through all of my books to see if I could recall who those customers would be.  In 5 years, that's only $1800 in expense and I'm positive we've gotten that back.  Most readers receive it by mail.  Our local papers don't do home delivery.  Those that don't receive by mail read it online don't see the ads because they don't post the paper in the same format.  So the only customers who can see our ad are reading it in a physical paper.  It's a business directory section.  Even if we hadn't recovered the 1800, that's a drop in a very large bucket of what we've thrown away, literally, on radio.   The only seasonal advertising I do is on FB.  In March I start pumping AC and in July I start pumping heating.  I start reminding people to be thinking months ahead and whenever we talk to potential clients in person, I tell them the same thing.   I haven't made specific posts in groups on FB but I have shared hundreds of posts from our pages.  We have several local groups that most people watch, so I share on those.  Since MT is so spread out and most small towns don't have service companies of their own, people watch for services from out of town.  Over 90% of our towns bring service companies in from the cities around them.  Posting in these groups is great advertisement because those towns know that if they see your ad in their group, it means you'll drive to them.   Owner/Business Manager Arctic Heat R&C Property Management Event Planner/Business Trainer Member - Women in HVACR Member - NAWIC; Mentorship Chair for MT Chapter Square Champions Expert Reply Subscribe 1 Kudo Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,825 Views Message 4 of 8 Report PessoAlumni ‎09-10-2024 10:51 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page In response to CareyJo It definitely could be worth looking into and trying to find out,  @CareyJo  ! I'm always a big fan of auditing how business spend their money -- sometimes the things that we did my ice cream shop felt like they were worth the price or cost effective, but once I dug in I found that they might not have been as good as I thought. But it definitely sounds like this could be a good price for what you've been getting out of it -- $360 a year is definitely decent!   Those seasonal strategies sound fantastic! So glad that you're tackling that and it sounds like it working-   That's so interesting -- thanks for sharing those insights about small town life. Great to hear that you're taking advantage of that and that it's working for you too! ️ Aylon Pesso , he/him Small Business Evangelist, Square Join the Square Readers Book Club Watch the Let's Talk Business Interviews Reply Subscribe 1 Kudo Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,786 Views Message 5 of 8 Report PessoAlumni ‎09-10-2024 10:06 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this post and on Dina's opening discussion thread! -- @Doran  ,  @LukeNieuw  ,  @schaefferjosh  ,  @Kobie1  ,  @1123  ,  @Smellthis1919   ️ Aylon Pesso , he/him Small Business Evangelist, Square Join the Square Readers Book Club Watch the Let's Talk Business Interviews Reply Subscribe 1 Kudo Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,798 Views Message 6 of 8 Report Smellthis1919 ‎09-10-2024 10:12 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page Hi Aylon and Dina 👍 😊 looking forward to it  Arline Trividic Reply Subscribe 1 Kudo Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,792 Views Message 7 of 8 Report PessoAlumni ‎09-10-2024 10:44 AM Thread Options Subscribe to RSS Feed Mark Thread as New Mark Thread as Read Float this Thread for Current User Printer Friendly Page In response to Smellthis1919 Thanks  @Smellthis1919  ! We'd love to hear your answers to the discussion questions that we posed at the end of the post. If you can share in the comments: What underpriced attention & marketing platforms (social media or otherwise) have you used in your business? How successful has it been? What initial ideas do you have to take advantage of the interest based system for promoting your business?   You can also jump over to Dina's  opening discussion  thread, and answer the questions she asked there! ️ Aylon Pesso , he/him Small Business Evangelist, Square Join the Square Readers Book Club Watch the Let's Talk Business Interviews Reply Subscribe 0 Kudos Mark as New Subscribe to RSS Feed Permalink Print Report 13,787 Views Message 8 of 8 Report Post Reply Square Community Get started Product help Feedback Networking Groups Product Updates Community News Square Products Hardware Payments Customers Staff Banking Developers Resources About Square Create a Square account Get help Contact Sales More Square Champions Code of Conduct Ask the community Help the community English © 2026 Square, Inc. Privacy Policy Legal Licenses