Tuesday, August 21, 2018

How social contagions reach critical mass, part 1 The law of the significant few

Critical mass in social contagions is the point where they start spreading exponentially. The speed is so fast that spreading takes care of itself. These contagions can happen either suddenly or slowly. An example of a sudden case was a change in using aeroplanes after 9/11. Instead of using a plane, many people used their own cars. Their probability of having lethal accidents became much higher. And after 9/11, there was much more deaths in transportation compared to the time before 9/11. An example of slow contagion can be any product that has been sold for many years before a big success. And then suddenly its popularity accelerates exponentially. Social contagions have three main components: people who spread it, stickiness of the message and the environment it spread. This text is mainly about the people behind social contagions.

The law of the significant few

Throughout the history, there has been people who have had enormous effects on others. These people are crucial for spreading social contagions and creating social proof. Sometimes they are people who are not known to have so much connections with other people and sometimes they are well known all over the world or in their own field of expertise. All these people have great social skills. They are efficient accelerators of epidemics. Being at the right place at the right time also matters. But it is not enough without great social skills. Getting assistance from these people help you to accelerate and widen the amount of listeners of your message. You can widely divide these people into three different groups: connectors, experts, and salesmen. Most effective of these people are some kind of combinations of these groups.

Connectors

If you don´t know many people, you cannot be a connector. These are the people who know everyone. Connectors are the type of people who are natural in getting to know new people. When you talk to them, you can be surprised how many people they know. I am sure you know at least one person who is like a connector. Ask his help for spreading your message. Connectors create so called weak links between people. They tell you that ”you should contact this person to talk about getting a new job”, or ”you can ask this person about a car he is selling.” Connectors are not important only because they know many other people. It is also highly likely that they know some people who can help you. They know the most important influencers and introduce them to other people. These people probably know more experts and salesmen, the other groups of people that are effective in spreading social contagions.

Experts or mavens

Malcolm Gladwell calls these people Mavens in his book Tipping Point. A maven means a ”one who accumulates knowledge” in Yiddish. Experts are not the people who have a similar effect on others than connectors. Experts are sources of information and connectors are more like the messengers. Experts have natural tendencies to gather new information. They figure out the best options for whatever you are trying to seek and want to deliver them to you. They have a natural desire to help other people solve their problems. They know the tiniest details about the things that rest of the people have no idea. Experts are both like teachers and students. They can also be seen as databanks.

Salesmen

Connectors and experts are not persuaders. They cannot change people´s minds. You need different type of people to get people change their opinions. These people are charismatic, they have lots of energy and you can feel their enthusianism before you even talk to them. Salesmen are capable of bringing rational and uniform arguments when they talk to you. These people are not only good in giving verbal arguments to you. They express their feelings and emotions well by changing their physical appearance. They do all of this by timing their facial and bodily expressions with your natural rhytm of communication. Most successful politicians are examples of salesmen. They have an ability to persuade you without even always having a personal contact.

Have a reasonable doubts about the advantage of having contact with these people

Be aware of the effects these people can have on you. All the effects are not good. This applies especially to experts and salesmen. People who you think are experts can be just fools in disguise. Many people follow their messages and life and think they are real authorities. They lead people to wrong directions. They may have lots of detailed information to share, but have no understanding about which pieces of their information are relevant. It is hard to find real cause-effect relationships from complex information and events. Even real experts are wrong sometimes. If you are not capable of knowing if these experts are real deals, you shouldn´t listen to them. Salesmen are very persuasive and they have power to change people´s opinions into wrong direction. You should always be especially mindful while you listen to them.

Next week I will introduce you to sticky messages.

-TT

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