Saltstraumen near Bodo, Norway. Flickr image by i.prinke.

Heavyset loyalists know that I’m a fan of Kevin Rothermel’s blog. A few days back, Kevin posted what he termed a ‘rant’, but is, in this reader’s opinion, is quite the opposite. In response to some of the wholesale generalities bandied about by a handful of unabashed social media mavens, Kevin writes:

Interesting doesn’t go away just because people are connecting more, in fact, I would argue that social media has only upped the ante on interesting, meaning that we’re going to be seeing more an more advertising that is actually really good, because it HAS to be now.  Those who can create interesting advertising are going to flourish, and they’ll flourish by way of social media, rather than in spite of it.

There’s a great deal more to Kevin’s post, and I strongly suggest you take the time to read it.

A few weeks back, Faris Yakob made a very similar point (also referenced in the comments from Kevin’s post), in his own post, The Natural Selection of Interesting:

As Duncan Watts has pointed out, the structure of the network is as important as that which seeks attention, and the same thing that becomes an attention grabbing hit one day, may not the next.

So, rather than collapse the wave function of this dialectic on one side, let’s remember rather it is the dynamic interplay of the two that makes things spread, that moves attention around the market.

In combination, some really exciting points here:

1. Interesting is now something of a mandate. Passable, unworthy of discussion or sharing, is losing the staying power to compete for attention share.
2. Interesting, unplugged from the network, is fleeting. With no means to syndicate it, interesting has a short shelf-life indeed.
3. Every interesting thing has a slightly unique network-ready DNA, which is to say that how and when it is plugged in to the network(s) has an impact on both how quickly it spreads and even how interesting it is perceived to be.

Not only is flooding the hot networks with your highly interesting object crude and simplistic, it’s not necessarily very effective.

Fluid dynamics are, I think, an apt metaphor. Two objects of distinct mass, buoyancy and scale placed in the same location in a body of water will take highly divergent routes through that body. In order to predict (or project) and desired path for either object, it is necessary to have an understanding not only of the object itself, but also the properties of the pool.

The same is true of interesting objects placed into networks. I think there’s a frequent notion that simply placing something interesting into a network is a victory (we’re social networking!!!), or that success is a byproduct of the number of followers acquired or number of tweets.

We know, though, because we are thoughtful creatures you and I, that this is not the case.

Success is a byproduct of having reached the target audience at the unique intersection of time, place and an experience that gives them a reason to act. This precise a goal demands not only something, to Kevin’s point, of surpassing interest but also, to Faris’ point, a gameplan for how we engage available networks.

Related posts:

1. DIRECTV is about to get really, really interesting (I think)
2. Access via Extraction?
3. Macrotrends 2010-2012: Social Behaviors in Retail Environments
4. Saved (and Hidden) by Science
5. Fun with TraceRoutes