This Is Marketing by Seth Godin

Too often, impatient marketers resort to stunts. Stunts come from a place of selfishness.
You do people a service when you make better things and make it easy to talk about
them. The best reason someone talks about you is because they’re actually talking about
themselves: “Look at how good my taste is.” Or perhaps, “Look at how good I am at
spotting important ideas.”
On the other hand, if we’re going to criticize you, censure you, talk about how you’ve
crossed a line, we’re doing that to send a signal to our friends and neighbors. That you’re
to be shunned, that you’re making things worse. We’re not impressed by how much
money you spent, what lines you crossed, or how important the work is to you.
No, we spread the word when it benefits us, our taste, our standing, our desire for
novelty and change.
Suspending Fight Club rules
Chuck Palahniuk wrote that the first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t talk about Fight
Club.
As soon as the right sort of character (worldview!) in the novel heard about Fight Club,
that rule was an invitation to talk about Fight Club. And, as it grew, so did the
conversations. Metcalfe’s Law again.
Alcoholics Anonymous is a huge organization. And it’s hardly anonymous. Built into
the practice of an active member is the posture that, when in doubt, we talk about AA,
because talking about it is a generous act. It’s a shame killer. It’s a life raft. It’s a
fellowship of connection, a chance to do for others what was done for you.
Ideas travel horizontally now: from person to person, not from organization to
customer. We begin with the smallest possible core and give them something to talk
about and reason to do so.
What we choose to market is up to us. If the change you seek to make can’t be talked
about, perhaps you should find a different change worth making.
Designing for evangelism
Some members of AA bring tension to nonmembers. They eagerly (and generously)
approach people with a drinking problem and offer to help.
Social pressure made us ill, they may think, and social pressure can make us better.
Evangelism is difficult. Bringing tension to a coworker or friend is fraught with risk.
It’s easier to avoid.
The hard work of creating the change you seek begins with designing evangelism into
the very fabric of what you’re creating. People aren’t going to spread the word because it’s
important to you. They’ll only do it because it’s important to them. Because it furthers
their goals, because it permits them to tell a story to themselves that they’re proud of.