Are you trying to get everyone to spread the word about your company? Maybe you’d be better off focusing on just 3 people instead. I’m talking about what bestselling author Malcolm Gladwell–in his game changing book, The Tipping Point–calls the “Connectors,” “Mavens,” and “Salesmen” of the world.

These people are so important to the fate of your company, that I’m going to spend the rest of this post explaining who they are, and how you can–to paraphrase Jerry Maguire–help them, help YOU.

  • Connectors. These are the people with thousands of personal Facebook friends, and they seem to defy Dunbar’s number with every status update (which usually earn hundreds of Likes and comments, even if it’s just a picture of a Waldorf salad).
  • Mavens. These people are always the first to figure stuff out–then they want to tell everyone else how they did it. If you have one friend who you’d call to get advice on buying health insurance, when to flip your child’s car seat to face forward, or how to start your own herb garden–he/she is definitely a Maven.
  • Salesmen. These are natural born influencers. They’re so good at persuasion that they don’t even need facts. If they told you your name was George Washington, you’d be inclined to check your birth certificate.

According to Malcolm Gladwell, it’s these 3 types of people who have the most power to make your brand go viral…to help you reach “The Tipping Point.”

With that in mind, do you think maybe you want to create content through a medium that makes it as EASY as possible for them do it?

Video Super HeroVideo + Connectors/Mavens/Salesmen = Virality

If Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen are the highways through which your content spreads, then video is the supercar it travels in. There’s no easier, faster, more frictionless way to help them promote your content (they will often do this for free, mind you) than by packing it into an easy-to-understand video that encourages them to do their thing.

Here’s a look at how this process works, in action, on each of the 3 Tipping Point catalyzers:

  • For Connectors, whose entire lives are fused with email, Facebook and Twitter, a video that packs some “social currency” is one of the most obvious types of content for them to share.
  • For Mavens, who love to constantly learn, video (especially whiteboard and cartoon animation video) is a proven way for them to quickly pick up new tricks (this is why many Mavens are also YouTube addicts). And once they figure out that you can solve their problems, they’ll make sure everyone else knows it, too.
  • And for Salesmen, who rely on great presentations to help them make their case, a persuasive whiteboard and cartoon animation video does a good chunk of the heavy lifting for them, increasing the likelihood that they’ll become your evangelist.

Thanks to Gladwell, we know that Connectors, Mavens and Salespeople are out there. But we don’t have to wait around and hope they’ll someday discover us. They may be the ones who move mountains, but with the power of video marketing behind us, we can give them a nudge in the right direction.