The Word of Mouth Musketeers

"The answer is that the success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts." (page 33)

This quote is taken from "The Tipping Point" at the beginning of Gladwell's second chapter which is entitled Law of the Few. The law of the few is a law that Gladwell uses to explain how certain word of mouth messages "tip" and how others are not so successful. In the quote above, Gladwell refers to the involvement of people with a rare set of social gifts. There are three groups of people that Gladwell feels are essential to creating a word of mouth epidemic. These groups of people are referred to as connectors, mavens, and salesmen. To describe how connectors work, Gladwell used an example called six degrees of separation. Six degrees of separation is the idea that someone chosen at random is only six steps away from being connected to a second person chosen at random. The intriguing fact about six degrees of separation is that not all six of the steps are equal, in other words, most connections can be made through a very small number of people who are linked to everyone else in a few steps. These people are known as connectors. The second group of people, mavens are information specialists. Mavens are people who accumulate knowledge about different markets and are obsessed with finding the best deal, not just for themselves, but for other consumers as well. What makes it possible for a maven to start a word of mouth epidemic is not that they know a lot of information, it's how they pass it along. Mavens have a genuine need to help people, something that Gladwell describes as an awfully effective way of getting someone's attention. The last group of people required to create word of mouth epidemics are salesmen. Salesmen are people with the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing. Gladwell explains how salesmen don't just persuade you with what they say, it's how they can connect with you when you're talking. He says that salesmen seem to have some kind of indefinable trait, something powerful and irresistible that goes beyond what comes out of their mouth, that makes people want to agree with them. This is what makes salesmen so influential regarding word of mouth epidemics, people tend to agree with what they are saying and pass it on because they trust them. Word of mouth epidemics are not just created by everyday people. It takes someone special whether it be a connector, a maven or a salesmen to create a message that "tips".