Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

I’ve got a BIG smile on my face. I just got a refund of just over $130 from GoDaddy because I was paying for an SSL certificate that kept renewing itself since 2006 and I wasn’t aware of it much less using it. Yes you read that correctly, not just a refund for a recent renewal but for all of the past one’s!

I’m happy because I wasn’t expecting any type of refund and boy did I get a BIG surprise with no questions asked.

Thank you GoDaddy!

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If you spend a good amount of time on the internet then I’m sure you’ve heard and watched OK Go’s latest video masterpiece. These guys have built a following by their sheer video producing talents. I didn’t know who OK Go was until a few days ago, when I watched the above video, it was enough for me to do some research and conclude that their music isn’t appealing to me but I have much to say about their dedication to producing pretty damn good videos.

Their videos alone are word of mouth worthy!

The band OK Go is probably more famous for their videos than their songs. That’s more a testament to the greatness of their videos than anything else. When these guys put out a video, you can be sure it’ll make your jaw drop at least once or twice. "How did they do that," is a typical reaction.

And that, is exactly what you want. To be known for something!

Just like Common Craft has built it’s reputation on creating ‘explanation video that anyone can understand’ and own that space in people’s minds, OK Go is doing the same with their music videos.

OK Go probably didn’t set out to differentiate themselves with videos and most likely didn’t have a ‘what do we want to be known for?’ brainstorming session. Most likely they started experimenting with ideas and kept going at it until something stuck and became so good at it that they can do these videos on a single take!

The takeaway here is you want to experiment with ideas with the goal of doing something distinctive that pushes boundaries. Do you think you could produce videos like OK Go? You probably can but have you ever tried?

Ask yourself: What do I want to be known for? And experiment with something that will push your boundaries.

What do you think? What are you experimenting with?

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Pictures are worth a 1000 words so I don’t think I have to explain what this provokes. To promote the launch of Gap’s new loyalty program, Sprize, the GAP store on Robson Street in Vancouver, Canada was flipped upside down!

Found via ReflectionOf.ME

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Here’s an accompanying video of Duncan Watt’s ‘Is the Tipping point toast?’ article where he argues that targeting the so called influencers is a total waste of time and instead marketers should target everyday people who are more receptive to new ideas. You should read the full article at Fast Company, it’s well worth your time!

I found the above video as well as 2 other perspectives on how ideas spread through networks via @ariegoldshlager and also wrote about this a few days ago that to spread ideas go to the edge where people are more receptive to new things.

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So where do you place an idea so it spreads through networks?

There’s some network research from MIT that trumps the notion of the influencer: the most influential spreaders in a social network do not correspond to the best connected people or to the most central people.

The truth is we don’t really know specifically from where an idea/trend will spread from, we only know that the weakest links (the people we never think of) have higher spreading power than the strongest links and these people are found at the edges of a network.

So what’s a marketer/innovator to do?

Influencers don’t care about you

There are some theories but the one most everyone focuses on is reaching the influencers made popular by Malcolm Gladwell in his book the Tipping Point. Well good luck with that because most everyone including your competitors is doing the same thing, the race is on to reach the so called influencers and they can barely keep up with all the ideas they’re being asked to spread.

Imagine being the care taker for the President of the United States and you get all sorts of letters from people who want to say something to the President and your job is to filter out the one’s that are most relevant for him to read and take action on. Well that’s exactly the battle you have to fight when targeting the influencers, everybody knows them so why would your idea come first?

People will ONLY ‘spread an idea’ if they think it’s worth remarking about, not because you paid them for their attention.

The fringe is much more friendly

New ideas and trends come from the fringe, from the edge and not from the mainstream, and spread from the edge to the center and then the process repeats itself. You stand a better chance of catching that ‘fire starter idea’ by going out to the fringe (where nothing is settled) instead of looking for ideas where everyone is looking (the mainstream) and then focus on making your idea take form with people at the edge.

In conclusion here are a few things to remember to help your ideas spread:

1. Go outside the mainstream where things are changing and look for ideas there.
2. Do algorithmic innovation: generate a lot of ideas, figure out ways to try them out cheaply and quickly, and then scale-up the ones that seem most promising.
3. Your idea needs to be buzzworthy. Ask yourself: Would anyone tell a friend about this?
4. Feed it to the fringe.
5. Make the influencers come to you.

What do you think, what’s your experience with making ideas spread?

Collapse theory graphic by BlackCoffee

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