This Is Marketing: You Cant Be Seen Until You Learn to See

Where’s your bridge?
The bridge across the chasm lies in network effects. Most of the fast-
growing marketing successes of our lifetime have spread because of ideas
that work better when everyone knows them.

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The early adopters have a huge incentive to bring your idea across the
chasm to the masses; it will make their lives better if everyone in their
network also uses this idea.
There’s no reason to talk about a new kind of chocolate you really like. It
doesn’t make your life better if others eat it.
On the other hand, you spend a lot of time telling people about Snapchat
or Instagram or Twitter, because if your friends followed you, your life
would improve.
That’s the simple ratchet power of network effects. Connected tribes are
more powerful than disconnected ones. Individuals who get in early have an
incentive to bring others along, and so they do.
It’s not just technology, of course, although it is often the force behind
the pattern interrupts that have remade our culture.
There’s an incentive for me to organize a bus trip to Washington, D.C., to
protest gun violence. If more people come, not only will we make more of
an impact, but the day will be more fun as well.
There’s an incentive to get your friends to sign up for the local CSA farm
share. The farmers can’t afford to come for just a few people in the
neighborhood, but if lots of people come, there will be better variety for all
of us.
The peer-to-peer movement of ideas is how we cross the chasm—by
giving people a network effect that makes the awkwardness of pitching
change worth the effort.
The bridge is built on two simple questions:
1. What will I tell my friends?
2. Why will I tell them?
It is never the case that people will tell their friends because you want
them to, or because you ask them to, or because you worked hard.
Give them a why. And that usually involves changing what you offer.
Make things better by making better things—things that have a network
effect, a ratchet, a reason for sharing.

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