DISQUS

L.L. Barkat · 1 year ago

I was doing some reading last night for our Mount Hermon seminar, and this very thought was on my mind. Because some people would say that you've got to get "in" with the "right" people. And intuition and some experience does tell me that "gatekeepers" are important for spreading the word, or the love.

Still, there was this nagging thought in my mind that all of this is bunk. I was considering that maybe the Chicken Soup for the Soul people (perhaps surprisingly) may be onto to something. Each person influences about 10 people who influence 10 people who influence 10 people. So influencing just one person powerfully could be better than influencing a gatekeeper at about the wet-noodle level.

Though I suppose that influencing a gatekeeper at the Fra Diablo level could have its rewards. (So, hey, how do we get on Oprah?)

Marcus · 1 year ago

L.L., yes, but getting on Oprah is not about being with an influencer. It's about having a moment of mass media influence--through the television show Oprah.

And thanks for giving me the title of my next book: Wet Noodle Marketing. It'll be the next Tipping Point!

L.L. Barkat · 1 year ago

Good, good point about mass media. Hey, great book title!

Mary E. DeMuth · 1 year ago

This whole marketing thing is a bit of a mystery to me. Of course, I do my best. I give copies to inflential folks. I have blog tours. I speak. Part of the whole phenomenon, though, gets back to God's sovereignty. I have to rest there.

Marcus · 1 year ago

Mary, I think you are doing everything right. Sowing seeds. Building relationships with lots of folks. One big problem I think we have in publishing is the hit mentality.

We see someone who wrote a bestseller and we forget all of the regular books they wrote prior to their runaway hit. C. S. Lewis is a good example of this. We all point to Narnia's success, but we forget that he was 52 before the first Narnia book was even published.

Not any writer should plan on waiting until he or she is fifty before finding publication success, mind you... But our role as writers is to produce good stories. Good stories will eventually sell.

That's what I like about Thompson's article. He says the environment in which something goes viral is more important than the people who spread the virus. Instead of thinking about who can help our books go viral, we need to think about what books will speak to our culture.

Heather Goodman · 1 year ago

Grassroots. That's what this makes me think of. A grassroots movement.
Or alternative. How is it that what once was "alternative" has been mainstream for years?

real live preacher · 1 year ago

I've done a lot of musing on this subject - how trends start. If you watch flocks of birds or schools of fish, I think it must be rather like that. One bird turns and suddenly the flock turns. But lots of birds are turning. What causes one to be the tipping point? Maybe it isn't just one. Maybe it is a moment where the collective unconscious comes together. I don't know.

But I do know that if this is true, our network is more powerful than we thought because we are more powerful than we thought.

I also visualize this as a hammer trying to drive a nail into a piece of plywood that is held in someone else's hands. It doesn't matter how big the hammer is, that nail is NOT going in. The blow is absorbed by the breadth of the plywood and the movement backwards when the person can't hold it still.

But there are times when our collective energy comes to a point and forms a base behind the plywood. And in that moment, even a small hammer can drive the nail home.

What I'm saying is, it doesn't matter how big the blogger if he or she isn't saying the right thing at just the right time. On the other hand, even a relative nobody who says just the right thing at the right time can become a 15 minute star.

Tom · 1 year ago

Good discussion Marcus. It ties into one of my favorite non-fiction books, "Made to Stick," by Chip and Dan Heath. The authors make the point that there's a reason some stories, facts and concepts take on a life of their own, and some don't survive. They use the example of how many people can recite "facts" in the urban legend about visitors to a big city who wake up in a bathtub of ice with a kidney missing. Yet many people can't identify the year that Berlin wall fell, an event that many of us lived through. (Unless you are too young to remember..."Uh, there was a wall in Berlin? Why did it fall down? Was anyone hurt?")

The authors assert that things that "stick" are
1) Simple
2) Unexpected
3) Concrete
4) Credible
5) Emotional and (something that should excite all of us writers...)
6) Stories.

And I find it very interesting that Jesus utilized all of those attributes as He introduced the Good News on earth.

Take care! Tom

Susan · 1 year ago

He also used exponential multiplication - one Jesus, a few loaves and fish divided by 12 disciples multiplied to over 5000 - just the way a good virus is supposed to work - a good sneeze should innoculate way more than the one sneezer!

the tipping point was interesting - made me think about what it takes to motivate and move small groups of people too.

David Rupert · 1 year ago

I struggle with self-promotion and pride -- two things that I have been guilty of in the past.

I don't know how to separate those out.

I love to see my name in print -- and it's sad that i can be so vain. Often when I write, I want people to say "wow, you are so insightful and smart."

My tipping point should be the work of God and not because of my own vain effots.

Is that possible?

Carl Holmes · 1 year ago

Not to thread jack Marcus, but I lost your e-mail.

Do you know why the High Calling Banner is messed up? Look at the one in the upper left corner of your blog, and the one on mine. It is the same code and they are not showing. I have confirmed this on multiple computers.

Any ideas?

Marcus · 1 year ago

Heather, the thing about grassroots is that you can order a palate of pre-grown grass. Then some guy comes out and lays it down on top of dirt. Water it twice a day for a few weeks and viola-- grass. Is there some social media equivalent of that?

RLP, the ideas about birds and fish really intrigue me. If our community is developing a collective unconsciousness--or even a collective consciousness--what does that look like? And how does it change the way we lead the community?

Tom, it's always good to hear from you. The Berlin wall fell down just a few months before I went to live in Germany as an exchange student! It was a really exciting time. I like the success acronym. #2 was, well, unexpected.

Susan, I like your reminder of the miracle of feeding the 5000. Does that mean social networking is really an activity of faith? Are we really asking God for miracles of marketing when we do this stuff? Interesting idea.

Carl, thread-jacking is okay when the dumb blogger doesn't have a contact field anywhere on the blog. We fixed the problem. Thanks for pointing it out!

Marcus · 1 year ago

David, your comment got caught by my spam filter for some reason. I just rescued it.

And it really struck a chord with me. I've often wished C. S. Lewis had written a book titled, "The Problem of Pride." Alas, he didn't.

My friend John Lewis pointed out something interested in Romans 12, though. It says, "Do not think more highly of yourself than you ought to think."

I've always read that to be another ego squashing edict, but John reads it a bit differently. We should think highly of ourselves. Just not too highly. We should view our God given gifts, talents, and responsibilities with sober judgment.

It sounds so easy, right?