Viral Marketing and the Law of the Few
Gladwell is talking about social epidemics. While some of this is applicable to marketing, his book is mostly applicable to the society and social interactions.
Viruses all go past a point of no return. This is where they have gotten a large enough base where the majority become infected. This is the point of critical mass, the threshold, the tipping point.
Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.
We are living in a philosopher’s paradise. Ideas can now be spread and influence people without physical limits. And the best ideas act like mercury - very hard to corral and control. The finest ideas are the universal solvant – unable to be held in any container except itself.
The tipping point is when an illness of a few becomes the epidemic of the many, the moment of change where a minor occurance becomes a major trend.
THE LAW OF THE FEW
Connectors
are people specialists. They know lots of people, have an extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances, of making social connections. They have mastered the "weak tie"; a friendly, yet casual social connection. They manage to occupy many different cultures and subcultures and niches.
Mavens
are information specialists. Once they figure out how to get that great deal, they want to tell you about it too.
They solve their own problems, or emotional needs, by solving other people’s problems. They provide the message.
Salespeople
have the skills to persuade when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing. They translate and communicate via the nonverbal and are practically more charismatic than those around them. Emotion is contagious. “Senders” are very good at expressing emotions and feelings. They are far more emotionally contagious than the rest of us.
Another point, which gives us all hope as marketers, is that any of us are connected to the rest of us by six or fewer other people. So any of us could create the next "big thing" which goes epidemic.
The author works on Yahoo Small Business Hosting, food packaging and pest control.