Said Coyle:

“We find that trying to track down key influencers, people who have extremely large social networks, is typically unnecessary and, more importantly, can actually limit a campaign or advertisement’s viral potential. Instead, marketers need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages.”

Online Markets...

Networked markets are beginning to
self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally
served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better
informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from
most business organizations.

...People of
Earth

The sky is open to the stars. Clouds roll over us night and day.
Oceans rise and fall. Whatever you may have heard, this is our
world, our place to be. Whatever you've been told, our flags fly
free. Our heart goes on forever. People of Earth,
remember.

• 
  
  In both internetworked markets and among
  intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each
  other in a powerful new way.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of
  social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

• 
  
  People in networked markets have figured out that they get far
  better information and support from one another than from
  vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to
  commoditized products.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than
  companies do about their own products. And whether the news is
  good or bad, they tell everyone.

• 
  
  Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about
  human concerns.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  The community of discourse is the market.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will
  die.

• 
  
  Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect
  for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.

• 
  
  There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One
  with the market.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost
  invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete
  notions of command and control.

• 
  
  However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online
  perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that
  are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.

• 
  
  We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are
  creating it.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  You're invited, but it's our world. Take your shoes off at the
  door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

• We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.
  
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it
  something interesting for a change.

• 
  
  We've got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some
  better service. Stuff we'd be willing to pay for. Got a minute?
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  You're too busy "doing business" to answer our email? Oh gosh,
  sorry, gee, we'll come back later. Maybe.

• 
  
  Don't worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it's
  not the only thing on your mind.
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of
  one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?

• 
  There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One
  >
  
  with the market.
  >
  
  

  
  
  

• 
  
  
  In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost
  >
  
  invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete
  >
  
  notions of command and control.
  >

Sidebar: 10 ways to raise a purple cow

Making and marketing something remarkable means asking new questions -- and trying new practices. Here are 10 suggestions.

1. Differentiate your customers. Find the group that's most profitable. Find the group that's most likely to influence other customers. Figure out how to develop for, advertise to, or reward either group. Ignore the rest. Cater to the customers you would choose if you could choose your customers.


2. If you could pick one underserved niche to target (and to dominate), what would it be? Why not launch a product to compete with your own that does nothing but appeal to that market?


3. Create two teams: the inventors and the milkers. Put them in separate buildings. Hold a formal ceremony when you move a product from one group to the other. Celebrate them both, and rotate people around.


4. Do you have the email addresses of the 20% of your customer base that loves what you do? If not, start getting them. If you do, what could you make for them that would be superspecial?


5. Remarkable isn't always about changing the biggest machine in your factory. It can be the way you answer the phone, launch a new brand, or price a revision to your software. Getting in the habit of doing the "unsafe" thing every time you have the opportunity is the best way to see what's working and what's not.


6. Explore the limits. What if you're the cheapest, the fastest, the slowest, the hottest, the coldest, the easiest, the most efficient, the loudest, the most hated, the copycat, the outsider, the hardest, the oldest, the newest, or just the most! If there's a limit, you should (must) test it.


7. Think small. One vestige of the TV-industrial complex is a need to think mass. If it doesn't appeal to everyone, the thinking goes, it's not worth it. No longer. Think of the smallest conceivable market and describe a product that overwhelms it with its remarkability. Go from there.


8. Find things that are "just not done" in your industry, and then go ahead and do them. For example, JetBlue Airways almost instituted a dress code -- for its passengers! The company is still playing with the idea of giving a free airline ticket to the best-dressed person on the plane. A plastic surgeon could offer gift certificates. A book publisher could put a book on sale for a certain period of time. Stew Leonard's took the strawberries out of the little green plastic cages and let the customers pick their own. Sales doubled.


9. Ask, "Why not?" Almost everything you don't do has no good reason for it. Almost everything you don't do is the result of fear or inertia or a historical lack of someone asking, "Why not?"


10. What would happen if you simply told the truth inside your company and to your customers?

In Praise of the Purple Cow

Remarkably honest ideas (and remarkably useful case studies) about making and marketing remarkable products.

Customer value and the network effect

March 08, 2007

Gupta says that he's currently

working on understanding and modeling complex network structures such as those of MySpace.
Here the issue that we are grappling with is the tangible and intangible value of customers. In other words, customers provide tangible value to a firm through direct purchases but they also provide intangible value through network effects or word of mouth.
> It is quite possible that some customers have low tangible but high intangible value. Traditional models would label such customers as low value and would miss a huge opportunity for a firm.