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You know what you see a lot online that constitutes awful advice? I mean, besides advocating the continued use of hashtags on Twitter?
It usually goes like this, “If your idea / product / person / cow / space alien is remarkable, it will spread. Not only will it spread, but you won’t have to publicize it or advertise it in anyway. Nobody advertises anymore.”
Yes. People say that. Especially about the space aliens, but the extraterrestrials have an unfair advantage, they’re remarkable because they don’t exist.
People are making entire careers off this nonsense because a lot of us believe it. There is a whole cottage industry of books and seminars based around telling you to be remarkable.
And what do they (usually) supply to you as evidence to support their theories? Credible individuals, celebrities, and other well connected homo sapiens . They usually gloss over the actual background of the story, assuming you won’t do your homework about their choice of subjects.
Here’s one recent blog post espousing this bullshit. The link has been omitted as not to subject you to any cruel and unusual punishment today … Although, I’ve used boldface here to emphasize key points of idiocy, so you might feel some mild discomfort:
Be remarkable. Ten years ago you needed to spend gobs of money on PR and advertising to spread the word about your idea. Today the friction that marketing must overcome is very low for remarkable ideas such that they can spread on their own. Unremarkable ideas languish unfound regardless of how much PR and advertising you do. So make sure you have a unique, remarkable offering as it will spread like wildfire on the Internet if it’s truly different.
Spot The Bullshit?
1. Ten years ago is no different than today. You still need to spend money on PR and advertising to spread your idea. Maybe not “gobs” but you certainly need to spend a clump, assemblage, or hoard to get noticed.
The difference between ten years ago and now is where the money is spent. Today it’s spent on an easy to use, visually appealing, and fun website. You still need the PR component and you still need to advertise extensively.
Very few things “spread on their own”. Sometimes it’s inflated (when corporate dollars are used to fake a viral success), sometimes it’s because people know how to influence a resource a lot of websites use for content (Digg), and other times, about as rare as an alien encounter, it just happens.
2. This is quite possibly the worst line ever written in the early history of social publishing, “Unremarkable ideas languish unfound regardless of how much PR and advertising you do”.
Really?
Jeff Dunham.
The syndicated television show I used to work for.
Social media and all of its empty, bullshit language.
LOLCats
“It’s over 9,000″
Tyler Perry
Tila Tequila
New York (the personality, not the city)
Ashton Kutcher
Most of the stuff on Twitter’s trending topics
MySpace
Most web comics
Nickleback
Most of today’s rappers
Fail
Certain blogs on the Technorati Top 100
Farmville, Spymaster, Mafia Wars, ect.
I could go on but we’ll be here almost as long as it’ll take the Phillies to win another World Series.
3. Finally, “if it is truly different”. Here’s the thing: Unless the status quo is truly fucked up (see: the presidency of George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter), people don’t want change. They don’t want something that’s new and different. Not always.
In fact, the more “different” you get, the harder it is for people to understand what you’re doing and then explain it to others on your behalf.
Have you ever found yourself explaining something new as “It’s X meets X”. Yeah. That happens pretty often, doesn’t it?
I have some legitimate theories as to how things spread online, which can be backed up with something I like to call facts. You can read my theory here.
Or, you can leave a brain dropping* or two over on my Facebook Page and let me know what you think of this and other Soap Box Included articles.
*Another hero of mine is George Carlin. His first book was called Brain Droppings. Instead of asking people to leave a comment, which sounds stupid since it should be to “comment” and not “leave a comment”, I’m now asking SBI readers to leave a brain dropping instead.
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