They are positive thinkers and their positivity and enthusiasm rubs off on others. Gladwell’s Salesmen are people who have an abundance of energy and enthusiasm. Marketers appealing to these people with the features and benefits of a product or service will be effective in having those qualities spread with conviction. I remember the “epidemic” of people using Maven in the position title or LinkedIn bio, given the book meet the social media rise in the late 2000’s this is little wonder. They are also enthusiastic and have great social skills that allow an easy transformation of knowledge and recommendations to others. Potential subject matter experts in your product or service in other words. Gladwell’s Mavens are people who possess a great deal of knowledge across a broad range of areas and hungrily consume new trends and product information. If you want to spread your brand, product, service, or idea then you will need to find who are the well connected, and appeal to them. This is important, because an idea or product being exposed only to a closed group, will not become an epidemic. The network doesn’t need to be tight and close in terms of relationships, it needs to be broad and loose its of acquaintances. The key part of this is the number of weak ties. They become the point of connection between ideas, products, behaviours and different groups of people. ConnectorsĬonnectors are people with a large social network across many different spheres. Gladwell identifies the groups of the few as Connectors, Mavens, and Salesmen. That roughly 80% of the work is done by 20% of the audience. Gladwell Law of the Few is: “The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts.” Here (like in thousands of books it seems) the “Pareto Principle” is invoked. For marketers wanting a product or brand message to go viral, the “Law of the Few” and “Minimum Viable Audience” are an important area of focus. Similar to the “Minimum Viable Audience” concept from This is Marketing which we reviewed last month the tipping point is reached after the actions of a small number. The point at which it reaches critical mass and can no longer be controlled. Primarily, they require an external factor to be the catalyst which causes it to spread until it reaches a tipping point. Social and behavioural epidemics share similar characteristics to viral infections. What does this mean for business? The factors at play in creating an epidemic can also be applied to product use, user behaviour, or brand adoption. He approaches it in a scientific way, looking at the epidemiology of cases where a small number became an epidemic. The Tipping Point published in 2002, is an investigation into what causes ideas, behaviours, and products to spread and go viral. The Tipping Point was his first book and breakthrough. His studies can be applied to many fields from criminology, to public policy, and for our purposes – business. Malcolm Gladwell is a highly acclaimed thinker and writer who’s writing has backed academic research in the fields of sociology and psychology.
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