Gauravonomics Blog

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Sarah Lacy on personal branding –

One of the advantages of the Internet– the relatively low barrier to click on something– is an advantage for building brands and gaining distribution online, but it’s also a disadvantage. People flock to you as a side-show, but don’t actually want to invest real dollars to support whatever you are doing.

I’ve got an inkling that this multi-year trend towards brand-this and brand-that in the business world may be in for a rude awakening.

I’m not saying brand doesn’t matter. I’m just saying it doesn’t matter the way it seems like it should on paper. In the last year, a lot of college kids or journalists young in their careers have asked my advice on becoming a brand, and I’ve told them there’s no quick and easy hack to get there. It takes time, long hours, and consistent work of merit in your field. Brand that hits people fast, usually doesn’t last… The other thing I’ve told them is to know what they’re getting into chasing the brand dream. No one tells you how hard it is to maintain it and to stomach all that comes with it, once you establish it.  Read More

Quick Summary: Duncan Watts debunks The Influentials and The Tipping Point, but word-of-mouth/ social/ viral marketing practitioners will do well to continue to focus on the tipping point potential of influentials.

Here’s a potential game changer for word-of-mouth/ social/ viral marketing.

Word-of-mouth/ social/ viral marketing is based on the premise, best captured in bestsellers like The Influentials and The Tipping Point, that a small cadre of well-connected people can trigger, or tip, trends. Reach the influentials and you’ll reach everyone else through them, basically for free.

Now, based on his new research, network theory scientist Duncan Watts, who is working at Yahoo! on sabbatical from Columbia University, says that this simple premise is wrong. While I’m still trying to fully understand what Watts own premise is, here is my three sentence summary of what he seems to be saying –

- Even supper-connected influentials don’t have the power to start a trend, unless the social context is anyways susceptible to the trend.

- The key, therefore, lies not in identifying influentials who will tip a trend, but in identifying trends that are ready to be tipped.  Read More