It’s a common conversationalist experience that when someone is talking about something they are invested in, they are frequently more pleasant to listen to. Even if the subject or topic is something you don’t particularly understand, it’s the authenticity that you are drawn to and in a way the context of the conversation and your contextual proximity to the person (friend/cafe, co-worker/office etc). You are more inclined to listen, learn and perhaps reciprocate.

In a digital “sea” absolutely glutted by the drift-nets of automated marketing campaigns, an authentic and relative post is that one hand-line hook hanging in the water that is often just too shiny to not bite. If authenticity encourages the initial bite, it’s context and relatively that pulls a reader in. Context relative to where they are consuming the content, their interests in context to that particular platform or environment and context to the other content in the surrounding “digital waters.” Above all they want to feel like they are getting something they were actually looking for or wanted.

Of course a content consumer isn’t relegated to a single internet environment or content type. While they may read about TCP/IP during the work day, a long visit to reddit.com/r/frontpage might be in order during the evening leisure hours. Commentary about TCP/IP is likely to be less attractive on reddit/r/frontpage and internet commentary is likely to be shunned in a forum on TCP/IP despite it perhaps being something the consumer would actually read. It’s the context that makes it attractive and the content’s appropriate placement in a relative digital environment paralleling a reader’s active interest at that time.

The Web is bigger and more diverse than ever and is under an epic bombardment of marketing “noise.” Savvier web users are able to tune out passive and useless information with record speed. If your content can “carry it’s own tune” through the noise it’s likely that someone will be listening for it.