Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Throughout the recent U.S. presidential campaign, commentators of all political stripes urged Donald Trump to give his Twitter account a rest. He ignored them, bypassing mainstream media in favor of a technology that continued to deliver his provocative messages directly, frequently, at all hours, and without filters.

While no hard proof exists that his tweets put him over the top in the election, they undeniably riveted the attention of a broad public, media included — and continue to do so. Here’s what business leaders can learn from the tweeter-in-chief about trying to win over large segments of consumers through social media.

“Big-seed” marketing beats viral. Duncan Watts, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, has been studying the sociology of networks for decades. His notion of big-seed marketing suggests that a message can spread faster and more systematically if it is “seeded” among many people.

That differs sharply from the viral approach, which attempts to create an “epidemic” of interest through a few targeted influencers, who spread a message among the people to whom they are connected. If those connections fail to pass on the message, it soon peters out.

Big-seed marketing is more reliable than designing content that mimics the qualities of cat videos in the hope of going viral. Companies like BuzzFeed have used the big-seed model to create successful news websites and advertising businesses....