Influence Ripples, Tipping Points + Toast

Consider this:

I got the latest Fast Company nearly a week ago.  I browsed the cover and noticed the "Un-Tipping Point" headline on the cover.  I then packed the magazine in my bag planning to read it on the train.

I never did.

Then Guy Kawasaki writes a post called "Forget The A-Listers After All" in which Guy advocates for Watts' approach which de-bunks Gladwell's Tipping Point (the article asks "Is the tipping point toast?) 

Am I the only one marveling at the irony?  It took an influencer like Guy to get my attention.  i read the article after seeing his post.

Which illustrates that describing how we influence one another may not be an "either or" situation.  In my influence ripples model (above), I stressed that there are different levels of influencers but both can influence.  That means people like Guy (and there aren't that many Guy Kawasaki's in the world) as well as the "unknowns" he references.  Forget the A-listers?  I have a slightly different take. 

Treat everyone like an "A-lister"

That way—you'll improve your chances of the getting both the "connected" and the "unconnected" saying great things about you.  And that's how ripples grow, spread and influence.  Then again, I'm no scientist and I could be wrong.
 

Comments

[Joanna Pena-Bickley]

david, funny you bring that up as i thought the exact same thing. I do not think you are wrong as there are to many case studies that prove Gladwell's Tipping Point. I have a similar theory as I am calling it CRM 2.0 http://joannapenabickley.typepad.com/on/2008/01/on-crm-20-conti.html

[paul isakson]

Ha! This has been in my bag since I got it and on my "must read" list as well. And tomorrow it shall be done as I've now read one too many interesting posts about it.

I won't make any remarks until I've read it, but you might find what Mark Earls has to say a bit interesting as well: http://rurl.org/gyx

[Bob Warfield]

That was funny!

I just wrote about this whole issue. I don't agree with Watts, but I understand why his experiments are producing the results they do. I just don't think those results are all that earth shaking.

More on my blog:

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2008/01/29/tipping-points-personality-styles-and-email-a-list-or-spam/

Best,

BW

[Mario Vellandi]

There are no absolute paradigms of 'Influence'. The tipping point effect of message dispersion through channels of interpersonal influence, is one form of applied networking theory. Any form of distribution that makes contact can be influential.
I like your description of levels.

[huperniketes]

You are correct in viewing Watts' work as flawed as he makes the same error most people make when hearing about The Tipping Point: limiting the important factor to influencers, then confusing influencers with A-Listers.

The Tipping Point is about signal propagation, not influencers. Gladwell's work identifies three types of influencers, context, and a stickiness factor for the message itself. Watts focused on a single category of influencers in his experiments. While an important scientific study, it fails to properly measure effects of changes in stickiness, and the importance of context. Where's the data on filtering? Where's the data on noise? His experiments on end-to-end signal transmission cannot be seriously applied to multi-network signal propagation, which is what marketing is all about.

[David Cushman]

amen. I had a bit of a rant about that article on the FastCompany website.

It went: "What is the value of a trend? If a thousand people send me a link which means jack to me, it still means jack to me. If one person sends me something that means everything to me - then no trend is required. One person has been influential to me, and that`s all it took. All the rest is spam and reduces your ability to influence me in future.

"The examples of socially connected groups coming up with different results in what music they like isn`t odd to me. All groups set their own standards for `what is good`.

"An influential in one group is not the same in every other group. In other words `joe public` becomes an influential the moment he influences people in his own part of the network. It`s kind of impossible for him not to be (he has influence, therefore, he is influencing... sorry... stating the bleeding obvious here!!!)

"If I want a mass market hit, what is the best route to selling loads? Low common denominator. Of course that defaults to mass marketing. But I think what the networked world is teaching us is that less people want to be defined by those low common denominators (the long tail is getting longer). Products which respond to the differing definitions of good defined by each niche are more likely to succeed. They get a better stab at serving that extending long tail.

"Viral works at its best when people can personalise and embrace the outcome. The same is true with marketing as it is with products. And there`s a convergence.

"I`ve written a white paper on marketing and advertising in the networked world, which I very much welcome comments on. it`s at fasterfuture.blogspot.com

[Cam Beck]

Here, is the key point of your post:

"Treat everyone like an 'A-lister'"

And this is important whether Gladwell or Watts is right, or if both have some piece of the truth, but not the whole story (which seems to be most likely the case).

Contrast your advice with how Target recently treated a concerned blogger, and you'll have a perfectly good example of what not to do.

[Len Kendall]

What if you took this concept and applied it the concept I just wrote about? That might actually change the way society functions and how people obtain their fame, power, money, etc? http://sociallmedia.blogspot.com/2008/01/digital-telepathy-brought-to-you-by.html

[Gaurav Mishra]

Unless I’m way off the mark here, and correct me if I am, the only debate here is whether you should spend your marketing dollars targeting your ads at a lower number of influentials or reaching a broader market. This is a debate about cost trade-offs, not the fundamental nature of social networks.

Given that the objective of most marketers is to spread a given idea in the most cost-efficient manner (and it is), given that improvements in technology will make it more cost-efficient to identify and target influentials (and it will), and given that influentials themselves will become more connected via social media tools (and they will), word-of-mouth/ social/ viral marketing practitioners will do well to continue to focus on the tipping point potential of influentials.

[Mark Earls]

Great post, David. Think you've hit the weak point in Duncan's piece: the answer to the question "so what do I do?".

That said, it strikes me that the thing many commenters struggle to appreciate though is that there is a difference between information cascades and behavioural ones. The Tipping Point conflates the two as do other Influential-type models. Of course, in many ways it's useful to view the latter through the lens of the former - it's a nice shortcut - but they're not the same.

So while we know that there are some people who are constantly recommending stuff to their peers (and also like to style themselves as folk who shape the taste and behaviour of others), their influence is at best untested (except retrospectively which the Black Swan warns us against doing). Influence is an entirely different thing from recommendation, not least because the first is largely behavioural and the second verbal and information-based (again the informational thing is getting mixed up here).

What Duncan is suggesting - and the work that I and various other folk have been doing recently would confirm - is that you don't need to build these "special humans" into your models of behaviour propagation at all. In fact, they seem to mess things up.

Finally, and more fundamentally, what a wierd ****** up picture of human society and human nature our marketing models give us.

BTW understand what you mean by the trail to the FC piece being "ironic" but suspect that this is in itself an indicator of what the Black Swan warns us of: the post hoc allocation of significance to what is by most counts, coincidence.

[Eamon]

This is one of the most interesting / intrigueing subjects in marketing. I am normally not shy of expressing an opinion but on this subject i am a bit stumped (I look forward to reading more about this in general).

[Christopher Fahey]

This is your best diagram ever, David -- the most beautiful and the most meaningful. I can almost feel the ripples and sense the memes moving from person to person. Well done.

[Mark Howell]

Great observation about Guy's post re-drawing your attention to the Fast Company article! Exactly what happened to me! And it does make the point that although Watts may be right...

mark

[Bob Glaza]

echoing Cam - a-list treatment for everyone seems the key, David - watch those ripples of influence return again and again

[Ben Rowe]

You're right David. "Treat everyone like an A-lister" is good advice, online and off.

With all this social media rippling, you just don't know who or when an idea will be picked up.

[Ann Handley]

Absolutely, DA. My take on "treat everyone like an A-lister" is "treat everyone like a who," which is one of my favorite themes.

(Not only in business, in fact, but in life.)

Nice post!

[Greg Verdino]

Good post DA and of course absolutely in the spirit of Watts's contention. I've seen more than a few posts (not this one and, thankfully, not even many of the comments) that take a reactionary swipe at Watts and his research, based on an inaccurate reading of his findings. I don't see anything in his research that suggests that he believes that people don't influence other people - just a theory that who does the influencing is far less important than the condition in which the receptor finds him/herself.

You were influenced to read Watts by Guy. I first learned of Watts through Scott Monty - who is a smart guy, solid blogger and a trusted collegue, but not a so-called A-Lister by any traditional definition. So I was influenced by Scott and when I saw Guy's post, I barely skimmed it. Influence can come from anywhere. So to your point (and I think Guy's as well, for that matter) is that the notion of a proper A-List is goofy. For that matter, I think most bloggers have found themselves in a position of 'accidental influence' that seems to exceed their status at one point or another. Remember when I, with a whopping couple of weeks of blogging experience under my belt, sent Nielsen BuzzMetrics into a tailspin with an offhand post about not allowing blogging at their blogging conference? Good times!

But more importantly (and with far greater impact) think about the "non-influencers" that recorded their AOL cancellation calls or posted sleeping Comcast tech videos to YouTube, and sparked MSM feeding frenzies. Are the influencers? They sure were. But were they INFLUENCERS? Not really - but they sure struck a nerve. The conditions were right.

Of course, this isn't good news to folks that use Technorati authority to cherry pick top bloggers for marketing outreach. :-)

[Mark Earls]

Great comment, Greg. Completely agree.

[Lee Erickson]

With the proliferation of blogs, social networks, and user generated content, the playing field is starting to level out in terms or who influences who. Back in the 90's that's what the web did for businesses - David could compete with Goliath. Today, it's the users turn - the every man can stir up as much noise as the A-Lister.

I think it comes down to a combination of who's talking and who's listening. It's about finding the right mix of where your customers are and who's talking to them.

Question...can an A-Lister lose their influence by becoming too recognized? Do they start to be seen as part of the establishment and not an impartial voice anymore?

[Mark Earls]

Interesting thought, Lee.

That's the way we tell the story but is it true?

Was it the A-list in any recognisable sense?

or was it just people around us?

[Graham Hill]

David

From what you wrote, you are a great example of exactly what Watts proposed. You already have an obvious interest in social networking that predates the Fast Company article. Guy was just one of any number of people in your network who could have trigerred you to read the article.

Something similar happened to me. I have been using social network analysis as a change management tool since I read Watt's first book, "Small Worlds". It was an article by John Todor that alerted me to the article but I never quite got round to reading it. It was Guy's post that reminded me to read it. But I saw a number of other reminders at around the same time too. Anyone of them could have triggered me to read it. Why did Guy's post trigger me? Because I was in need of something to read whilst I sat having lunch. And I saw his post just before lunch and printed the article out. Social network analysis and freshly smoked salmon. Yummy.

One thing I find interesting is how some readers put the social networks research of Watts on the same level as the popular journalism by Gladwell. I have read all three of Watts' books and both of Gladwell's. There is no doubt in my mind that Watts is vastly more informed about social networks than Gladwell. And that Gladwell is a better writer. As you would expect.

I guess this is just the case of those same readers refusing to update their mental models in the face of better evidence to the contrary.

Keep up the great work.

Grajham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager