What the hell does this even mean?
Online at least.
When you stumble with something remarkable offline, you talk about it. Really talk about it.
It’s a story, it’s an anecdote, it’s about you. You will tell everyone you know, and you’ll make sure they are listening. Besides, it doesn’t happen very often.
But online, we have reached what I call the Spread Commoditization.
What does this mean? That sharing is too easy.
It’s not that there’s really so much remarkable stuff, but the fact that spreading it has become so easy, makes people share everything, remarkable or not. Word of mouth is becoming noise, which will eventually make us very talented at ignoring it.
Truly fantastic and remarkable stories will still spread, but the odds are worse than ever.
Online at least.
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It’s an interesting idea, but to some extent it could mean that the truly remarkable or interesting will wade its way through to the top, because people really will talk about it.
Low-level viral is becoming obsolete, but that’s a good thing.
I mean, you wrote an interesting post, and I made it here somehow and will now spread word. The one truth is whatever is true today will be obsolete in six months. lol
Do you really think you will “spread the word”? I’m skeptical. You’ll mention it, but it will be just another retweet, just another link.
Most things that spread online are based on offline events. which makes you wonder what’s the future of online business, ideas or fame…
Well I don’t mean to say like “my personal touch is gold” – don’t misunderstand. Just that there are groups of people who do trust what one another says.
Like I have a group of people that pretty much anything they say I should read/see, I’ll check it out, because I trust them. So maybe things can’t spread as wide/fast as before, but to say hey can’t spread isn’t accurate either.
No, of course, you’re right. I’m not saying that you have a gold touch nor I’m saying that it’s pointless. But I do see more limitations when it comes to online word of mouth. Also, our reach (those people that read everything we recommend or whose recommendations we follow blindly) is getting smaller.
I agree with Brian in that yes, it’s increasingly easier to share bad information, but it’s also that much easier to share good. I don’t have to rely on me, myself, and I to spread the good word about something I’m doing – with modern technology, I can plant a few seeds and watch the community turn them into living, breathing, thriving messages. With the bad comes to good – we as people are continuing to evolve as well, we’re developing the ability to distinguish between the garbage and the gold.
We all agree then: Truly fantastic “gold” will still spread.
What if the noise continues to get bigger? What’s the future of the word of mouth?
I don’t believe in effortless spreading, and that’s what I’m seeing more and more…
Great point Carlos. Sharing has become far to easy and this has diluted the wom process. However, the influencer model still holds a lot of water. Often sharers like the ones you describe above are weeded out by most people, leaving only those with something valuable to say or share to inform you.
This kinda ties in with my recent post — When you start following people that really have no value to you (they my be valuable to other people, but you might not be interested in what they have to say) it dilutes the effectiveness of word of mouth online. You start to miss information because someone is tweeting something similar to your image in your post.
Carlos, this is one of the “double-edged swords” of social media. While it’s great that the Web 2.0 world makes it easier to share good information, it also aids in the distribution of the negative and meaningless. It’s great to have the help of the digital community to spread the word about your content, but it’s very easy to go into content overload. I have the same worry that you do, that the truly remarkable stories will get lost in the shuffle. I think the best we can do is continue supporting each other and making sure great content gets the attention it deserves. Great topic!
I’m more or less in agreement with the core of what you’re getting out here Carlos. It gets even more complicated when you start factoring in relationships and friends. It goes without saying a lot of people will re-tweet something an influencer tweeted or wrote just because of WHO wrote it, not what the content is about. David Spinks had a truly great discussion on this very fact, something he called True Transparency. I think you’ll enjoy it (and don’t miss the comments.)
I did, and subscribed to his blog afterwards. Thanks Ryan!
On the flip side, do you think it might be up to us as well to try to make an even more concerted effort at the news that we are spreading? Take Follow Friday for example. Last Friday I decided I was sick and tired of seeing people drop as many Twitter handles into 140 characters as possible without making the effort. There are some people who’s opinions I value greatly so I would blindly follow without hesitation (Matt and Ryan come immediately to mind.) Then there are others posting out handles without any explanation WHY they are following and why you should, too. Thus the flurry last week of a few thought out folks with some explanation why.
I would agree with the noise of “word of mouth” marketing online. There are people and businesses who use Twitter as a big loud soapbox without saying anything important, they’re just screaming. And people standing in the middle of a crowd screaming about nothing in particular generally get ignored because they’re crazy. We need to figure out how to separate the noise from the crazy soapbox screamers.
Follow Friday is a great example. It’s just a useless parade of names that don’t mean a thing. So yes I think true spread comes with effort.
And regarding the screamers, it’s called unfollowing. I actually did this today with a couple of “friends”.
Join WP already Elisa! Thanks for stopping by!
I agree totally on Follow Friday. I only do it every few weeks, and it’s like one person per Tweet, with an explanation of why, and maybe 10 people total. I only do it when I really think it’s warranted and valuable, and I think it works way better that way.
Good insight again.
It is easier than ever to share and that will mean that we start ignoring more of what comes our way. It also means that to be remarkable, you will really have to do amazing things. It is easy to see that happening already. Poorly designed blogs, Twitter followers with no avatar and hastily written posts are generally ignored. Something really has to be amazing to be noticed. That means quality levels will continually increase. That’s a good thing. Tools will come online that will make it easier to create high quality work. However, I also think it will be increasingly difficult for newcomers to compete against already established bloggers and content providers who are consistently improving.
We will see much higher quality video, animations, original illustrations and well researched posts because those are the only ones that people will want to read and recommend. This is also related to your recent FREE post. All the content that is selling now, will soon be given away for free to attract readers for more remarkable content or services. The bar will continue to be raised.
As always, you spark out a good point! Social media in its “dark side” is equivalent to useless noise. However, it is up to you to make it valuable and interesting by sharing good stuffs and following people that shares things your value as well. In that aspect it can be an amazing tool.
For the follow friday you mention in the comment, it’s true sometimes is just a useless list of names. But I still like that tradition and have found great peeps to follow thanks to it. It’s also a nice shout out to people you enjoy following. The best way is to make it interesting is to indicate why to follow the Tweoples you #followfriday.