Breaking Through the Clutter

Creative ideas and contents shared over the internet don’t just spread, they become contagious, everyone will at least hear about it, spend time to talk about it, and then share it. 

Different theories on how to spread ideas have been created but three became prominent in the digital world. These theories are people characteristics, message characteristics and network characteristics. They somehow interrelated to each other. Let’s have a look.

My take on the Best Theory to spread ideas on the digital world

Breaking through the clutter is definitely easier said than done but to appreciate the best theory to spread ideas we would have to understand the current consumer behaviour which is becoming much harder to predict. Consumers have now become more empowered to demand what they like, see what they like and hear what they like. You cannot bombard consumers with loads of information (because there’s already too much out there) and tell them what to do. 

Just over a year ago, an egg became the most famous non-human social media celebrity in the world (@world_ record_egg) with Instagram followers of 9.4 million at the time of this writing. 

Marie Kondo, who is otherwise known as an organising consultant and an author has become a recent social media sensation for her idea of minimalism that’s gone viral. Now, almost everyone is into the bandwagon. Simple and authentic.

Lastly, the very controversial and probably the most criticised social media influencer, Felix Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie. For whatever reason(s), has convinced more than 100 million followers across his social media platforms for his unconventional views and contents. On Instagram alone, he’s got more than 16 million followers.

Click the link below if you want to know the top 25 social media influencers of 2019.

http://mediakix.com/2018/03/top-influencers-social-media-instagram-youtube/#gs.4d5x7s

With this, I am convinced that the theory of Seth Godin somehow aligned to my own opinion that in order for an idea to become viral, this idea needs to be told to a target audience, has to be brave, honest, bold, simple, new and authentic. Building a community of like-minded individual is important where people feel the sense of kinship and belongingness.Similarly, knowing what the community like is vital when creating contents. Selecting a target audience (who cares about you and what you are going to say) is essential because they become the pipeline for awareness, they can articulate the message before it spreads, they become ambassadors for change if you like. Contents could be full of human emotions but if it's not articulated by the community its intended, it becomes futile. 

You have to tell the truth even if it could hurt anyone. The idea has to be different yet current, relevant, simple, understandable and shareable for everyone to talk about.

In today’s consumer world, we want to listen to messages that are organic and from the people we can resonate with. Consumers want a message that is straight to the point with a little bit of fun and playfulness in one. It is the human-factor. 

As stated by Seth Godin “In a world where we can now connect whomever we want, why would we connect to someone who is boring and selfish. We are going to connect to people who are interesting, walking the tightrope and generous.”

Please let me know what you think.