Until I met Dre, the only one to look past, gave me a chance,
and I lit a fire up under his ass, helped him get back to the top,
every fan black that I got, was probably his in exchange
for every white fan that he’s got, like damn, we just swapped.– Eminem (White America)
Over the past year I’ve started to really take an interest in the strategies companies use to distribute their product. One of my favorites is a sub-set of co-promotion that I’ll call the “Network of networks” strategy whereby a single product brings together a couple small but passionate groups. Rappers do this extremely well by featuring many artists into each song. Each artist comes with their own small but passionate group. Each group is strong within its own social network, but nothing on a macro-level, when they come together they can bring a product to its tipping point.
“Social” startups are trying to take advantage of this and are starting to make it work. This or That, for instance, runs contests where one networked group competes against another networked group. Each group feels compelled to mobilize their group to get votes and thus build a user base for the company.
The next time you sit down to think about your own strategy, think about how you can build this network effect into the model.
