This is something I found last year that I think is still relevant when thinking about Web 2.0 successes and strategies.
The idea is that if the network permits the spread of the idea, then virtually anyone can spread it. It's from research by Duncan Watts and colleagues at Columbia University which is an important development on Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point theory of key influential individuals being the ones marketers should seek out and influence to influence others.
Perhaps so called 'influentials' are still ones we should find, understand, enlist in co-creation and help us resonate ideas for brands, because they may be best placed to resonate an idea across networks of their own, but perhaps we would increase our chances of success if we spend more time and effort on making sure the network itself is 'idea-ready'. Like on a tight drum skin, a slight tap can make a great noise, but if the skin is loose, a big sound can still be made, but it takes a lot more effort.
A case in point is Lonelygirl15 from a few years ago, who became a Web 2.0 case study after she achieved webwide coverage for apparently no reason other than she hit a community ready and willing to transport her broadcasts across the globe. Arguably, she wasn't that influential herself, but thanks to the resonance potential of the network, she became famous. Similarly the Free Hugs guy, Juan Mann, may have hit the internet fame magic formula of, good content + tuned network = web 2.0 success.
This is one of the ideas listed on the Harvard Business Review's breakthrough ideas for 2007 in HBR ideacast number 29.
Also on this podcast are sections on:
1. New thoughts on marketing brands from Harry Potter - essentially,
brands might be more successful if they grow and mature with their
audiences rather than segment audiences by age and attempt to talk to
people only of that age - upside is increased loyalty, less likelihood
of switching at key ages and lower costs of acquisition of new
consumers.
2. 'Conflicted consumers' - an interesting idea that beneath the loyalty figures in most companies, there is a stealth segment of consumers who have ethical concerns about the company and are poised to bolt if a competitor comes along with a more viable alternative emerges - apparently 1 in 4 consumers bought things from companies whose ethical reputation they deemed to be poor or very poor, but unlike hardcore ethical consumers who go green or go without, they continue to purchase but have a latent potential to be an upsurge of bad word of mouth. Lesson here for me is stay ahead of the ethical trends and take leadership - catch-up or staying with the pace of trend may be going too slow to stay in the game.
3. An observation that people who are political or social conservatives tend to have more children, who in turn have more children, which means consumer culture demographics
4. The folly of accountable-ism is the last idea - the increasing bureaucratisation of morality and how that ends up working against efforts to maintain moral and ethical behaviour in an organisation.
