Analyzing how the COLD MOUNTAIN became a blockbuster will help us to peek at the invisible networks and try to use it as a snapshot of how buzz works.
WHERE DID IT ALL START?
At what point does an idea leave the brain of its creator and start traveling in invisible networks? For cold mountain .In this case it would not have generated much buzz initially if the wife of the author had not referred some of the pages of the manuscripts to literary agents and publishers and also to some write friends. Everybody appreciated the book and a few days later the rights were owned by Atlantic. However only so much buzz can be generated in the industry at any given point of time and after a while it died down. Cold Mountain was no exception. Nobody even gave it two thought.
HOW PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE INDUSTRY FIRST HEARD ABOUT THE BOOK
“As soon as the book was published it was a best seller in six weeks and this was not due to media attention but due to tradional word of mouth,” says Morgan Entrekin, president of Atlantic.
Mike Jordan, a professor of social psychology first read the book in a prepublication review of charlotte observer. He was fascinated and he and is wife bought three more copies and gave it to parents a friend. Jordan also posted a review on amazon.com, participated in a panel discussion about the book and gave Cold Mountain as one of the options of a graduate student project.
Seeing the activities of people like Jordan, it is visible how powerful individual “hubs” can be in promoting a product they like. The communication which happened in Jordan’s case is a two step flow model. Information flows from media to network hubs and from the hubs to the rest of the population.
BUZZ SPREADS IN ALL DIRECTIONS
Buzz does not spread in neat patterns. For example Jo Alice heard about the book from a friend not the media. She went on to tell atleast 50 people about the book. Another flight attendant took advantage of dozens of opportunities to tell passengers about the book. Some readers heard from clerks at a bookstore. And in case of “reverse flow” clerks get excite about the book only after the early readers reactions. However the flow of information about product cannot be separated from the quality of a product itself. The extent to which expectations are met or exceeded are critical in determining how much buzz a product generates.
WHAT MADE THE WORD SPREAD
ENERGY:
A tremendous amount of energy was put behind this book. The comments that traveled in the networks about COLD MOUNTAIN were charged with energy. Beyond just passion and money energy is about the time and money spent behind a product.Entrekin spent hours writing down about 150 names of writes all over the country who would be interested in reading the book. Atlantic also spent a lot of money behind the book in every step. Everyone involved in the book put time and energy promoting it.
Entrekin went on a tour reaching out to retailers and readers which allowed sparking thousands of shortcuts into small clusters and cliques. Grove demonstrated so much confidence in the book that the rest of the industry responded .He even sent galleys to competing publishing houses. There was a lot of goodwill surrounding the book. The book thus sold 1.6 million copies of the hard cover edition alone, an astounding number.
CREDIBILITY:
Buzz travels most smoothly through channels of trust. Customers of bookstores have learnt to trust the clerks behind the counter. Also no matter how much credibility one has the best buzz comes from a third party-not the manufacturer itself. In case of cold mountain the signal from the competitors was positive and many bought rights to publish the book in different languages and formats.
Thus to learn how to help to create buzz any company should be able to answer the following questions:
From whom do the customers learn about the product?
What do people say when they recommend the product?
How fast does information spread about the companies product s compared to other products?
Who are the network hubs?
When does information hit a roadblock?
How many sources of information does a consumer rely on?
What other kinds of information spread through the samew network?
WHERE DID IT ALL START?
At what point does an idea leave the brain of its creator and start traveling in invisible networks? For cold mountain .In this case it would not have generated much buzz initially if the wife of the author had not referred some of the pages of the manuscripts to literary agents and publishers and also to some write friends. Everybody appreciated the book and a few days later the rights were owned by Atlantic. However only so much buzz can be generated in the industry at any given point of time and after a while it died down. Cold Mountain was no exception. Nobody even gave it two thought.
HOW PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE INDUSTRY FIRST HEARD ABOUT THE BOOK
“As soon as the book was published it was a best seller in six weeks and this was not due to media attention but due to tradional word of mouth,” says Morgan Entrekin, president of Atlantic.
Mike Jordan, a professor of social psychology first read the book in a prepublication review of charlotte observer. He was fascinated and he and is wife bought three more copies and gave it to parents a friend. Jordan also posted a review on amazon.com, participated in a panel discussion about the book and gave Cold Mountain as one of the options of a graduate student project.
Seeing the activities of people like Jordan, it is visible how powerful individual “hubs” can be in promoting a product they like. The communication which happened in Jordan’s case is a two step flow model. Information flows from media to network hubs and from the hubs to the rest of the population.
BUZZ SPREADS IN ALL DIRECTIONS
Buzz does not spread in neat patterns. For example Jo Alice heard about the book from a friend not the media. She went on to tell atleast 50 people about the book. Another flight attendant took advantage of dozens of opportunities to tell passengers about the book. Some readers heard from clerks at a bookstore. And in case of “reverse flow” clerks get excite about the book only after the early readers reactions. However the flow of information about product cannot be separated from the quality of a product itself. The extent to which expectations are met or exceeded are critical in determining how much buzz a product generates.
WHAT MADE THE WORD SPREAD
ENERGY:
A tremendous amount of energy was put behind this book. The comments that traveled in the networks about COLD MOUNTAIN were charged with energy. Beyond just passion and money energy is about the time and money spent behind a product.Entrekin spent hours writing down about 150 names of writes all over the country who would be interested in reading the book. Atlantic also spent a lot of money behind the book in every step. Everyone involved in the book put time and energy promoting it.
Entrekin went on a tour reaching out to retailers and readers which allowed sparking thousands of shortcuts into small clusters and cliques. Grove demonstrated so much confidence in the book that the rest of the industry responded .He even sent galleys to competing publishing houses. There was a lot of goodwill surrounding the book. The book thus sold 1.6 million copies of the hard cover edition alone, an astounding number.
CREDIBILITY:
Buzz travels most smoothly through channels of trust. Customers of bookstores have learnt to trust the clerks behind the counter. Also no matter how much credibility one has the best buzz comes from a third party-not the manufacturer itself. In case of cold mountain the signal from the competitors was positive and many bought rights to publish the book in different languages and formats.
Thus to learn how to help to create buzz any company should be able to answer the following questions:
From whom do the customers learn about the product?
What do people say when they recommend the product?
How fast does information spread about the companies product s compared to other products?
Who are the network hubs?
When does information hit a roadblock?
How many sources of information does a consumer rely on?
What other kinds of information spread through the samew network?