Social Media and the Tipping Point (Part 3 of 3): The Power of Context

In applying The Tipping Point to social media, we’ve covered the power of one message (the Stickiness Factor) or one person (the Law of the Few) to “tip” your campaign toward epidemic “viral” proportions. But the third and final agent of change (the Power of Context) referenced in Malcolm Gladwell’s book is all about community:

“If you want to bring about a fundamental change in people’s belief and behavior, a change that persists and serves as an example to others, you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured.”

You already do this in your social media communities – building relationships with a group of people who share your interests, background and/or goals. The right message, shared by the right person, within this community speaks to the Power of Context.

The Broken Windows Theory

Based on studies of the rise and fall of crime epidemics, Gladwell points to the Power of Context as it relates to the Broken Windows theory:

“If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge…. Broken Windows theory and the Power of Context are one in the same. They are both based on the premise that an epidemic can be reversed, can be tipped, by tinkering with the smallest of details of the immediate environment.”

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Social Media and The Tipping Point (Part 2 of 3): The Stickiness Factor

If the Law of the Few determines who is sharing your social media content, the Stickiness Factor determines why. You could have the attention of every key influencer in the social media world, but if your message isn’t memorable and/or important, the Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen (referenced in Part 1 of this series) won’t have any inclination to share it.

“The specific quality that a message needs to be successful,” writes Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, “is the quality of ‘stickiness.’ Is the message — or the food, or the movie, or the product — memorable? Is it so memorable, in fact, that it can create change, that it can spur someone to action?”

So how do you do it? How do you create a blog post, Facebook update, tweet or YouTube video intriguing enough to attract attention, and substantial enough to evoke a response?

Again, it’s the Law of Attraction.

If your messaging is saturated with sales pitches, all you’re going to attract is negative attention. In the social media world, people are looking to find and share thoughts and information that inspires change in their life. Yes, products and services have the power to change lives, but it’s your job to “package” your messaging in quality content, not thinly-veiled promotions that prove you care little about genuine engagement.

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Social Media and The Tipping Point (Part 1 of 3): The Law of the Few

Before the first YouTube video went “viral,” Malcolm Gladwell wrote The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. It’s about the kind of infectious behavior that spreads ideas, information and content – social epidemics ranging from the success of contemporary ad campaigns to Paul Revere’s historic ride through the countryide spreading the word, ”The British are coming.”

Though I didn’t read The Tipping Point with social media in mind, and the book by no means references it, the relevance is unmistakable. Based on his analysis of a number of case studies, Gladwell discovered three “agents of change” that can mean the difference between an idea or product that gets lost in the shuffle, and one that “tips” to epidemic proportions.

In this Part I of III posts on social media and The Tipping Point. Let’s look at the first agent of change, The Law of the Few.

We talk a lot in social media about the importance of connecting with social ”influencers” – those key people who influence masses of others, or at least those in a specific area or niche. In context of The Tipping Point, these social media influencers fall into three categories:

• Mavens, who collect and share information, not as a means of persuasion, but education.
• Connectors, who bring people together; if you’re linked to a connector, you’re one step away from having your foot in many worlds.
• Salesmen, who find an idea, cause or product they believe in and spread the word, determined to convince everyone else of its worth.

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The Spirit of Change at the Famed Bodhi Tree Bookstore

West Hollywood's Bodhi Tree Bookstore was founded in 1970 by aerospace engineers Phil Thompson and Stan Madson.

It was over 20 years ago that my mom handed me a copy of Shirley MacLaine’s Out On a Limb. I was in a real funk then, mad at the world, the prime targets my parents who had moved me the summer before my sophomore year in high school. Though I probably didn’t believe her at the time, I’ll never forget what my mom said of the book because it turned out to be so true:

“Maybe it will help you look at life differently and things as they are now won’t seem so bad.”

In fact, Out On a Limb was my first exposure to metaphysics and forever changed the way I perceive my connection to a higher power.

Flash forward to February of 2010 when I moved to Los Angeles. In my newbie studies of L.A. Weekly, I read an article about the closing of the famed Bodhi Tree Bookstore on Melrose in West Hollywood. It struck a cord with me, though for reasons I didn’t understand. I kept the article as a reminder to visit before it was too late.

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Why Social Media is Inherently Good [#SOCIALGOOD DAY]

Question of the Day: Can social media make the world a better place? (photo: Point Mugu, Malibu, CA)

On this Social Good Day, the question posed to us by Mashable and (RED) is this: Can social media make the world a better place? In my view it already does, simply by its very existence.

Even if you’ve never studied the law of attraction, or you write it off as “voodoo” science as my father likes to call it, I suspect you already live your life accordingly. 

Wherever you want change, that is where you focus your energy. Putting positive energy toward whatever goal you have in mind inevitably attracts results. That’s how your thoughts create your reality, provided you have the emotional motivation and necessary action to back it up.

Read full story at Fluttering Ivy Media….