There have been two notable experiences in that past week that gave me some grins and perhaps a better understanding of the social nature of our marketing world.

Business books are a habit of mine.  I buy them, read them, listen to them, quote them and pass them along.  Last week I bought and read one that I thought was good money wasted on a premise meant to sell books and not to help marketers.  I had read the reviews on Amazon and all but one was positive.  So, my expectation for the book was fairly high.

After reading the book, I reviewed it on Amazon and added a negative review.  The first time I had ever done such a thing.  Then I forgot about it and the book.  A day later, an email from the thin-skinned author shows up on my iPhone.  From there came argumentative emails that were condescending and insulting suggesting that perhaps I wasn’t smart enough to know the “truth” as known by the author.  And that if I couldn’t see that he was “absolutely right,” well then…

Two things come to mind.  First, he could have a point about my intelligence.  Second, his response perhaps destroyed the intellectual ground on which he made the initial accusation.  As of this writing, I know of no marketing author, theory or practice that is absolutely right and his response really demonstrated a lack of understanding of the influence of social media.

The very next day, Wendy Gray, a friend of mine and the agency, emailed me because she had gotten an alert about my review.  She then sent me a link to another blog who had reviewed the book poorly and had gotten the same kind of response from the author.  I left a comment of common experience.

So now the guy who was “absolutely right,” had multiple people saying he was absolutely wrong.  And they were saying it more believably that he could ever claim to be “absolutely right.

All this guy had to do if he wanted to stop a negative process was to thank me for my review and my insight.  Tell me that he would consider my point of view in the future.  Ask me, to do the same and to watch for his next book.  An amazing difference.

I listened to someone I really respect say that she was afraid of social network media because she was out of control.  I thought back to the author.  He was not in control of how I felt about his book, but he was in control of how he responded to how I felt about his book.  And that my friends is the lesson.

Online communities have given new meaning to the word “lurk.”  It used to mean “to hide in preparation to attack.”  Now it means to read but not contribute online.    By some estimates, lurkers account for 90% of the readership of community sites, but 0% of the posts or comments.  Conversely, 90% of the posts come from 1% of the community.

You can conclude that the 1% that post are the most influential members of the community.  You can really see this effect on sport fan message boards.  If you want to see what the fan base is thinking, all one need to do is go to the fan base message board.  A big message board will have more good and bad information than the best sports page.  And while there are loose cannons on these fan message boards, they really can measure the temperature of a fan base. Don’t be surprised if the local sports editor is a regular lurker.

As you think about product rating websites like iTunes and Amazon, just think how that 1% can make or break a product.  If that 1% says the product is good, then it will probably sell to the 90% that lurk.

The number of people who lurk, make it vitally important to know what the 1% are saying about your product online.  We’ve seen companies totally unaware of extremely negative comments about their products. And it undoubtedly cost them sales.  We’ve heard the discussions that perhaps those disgruntled customers should just be ignored rather than risk inflating the problem.  In our view, you should have a strategy to mitigate the negative and accentuate the positive comments made in online communities.  If you don’t, you let 1% influence 90% who will, in turn, influence even more people offline.