Big fires aren’t started by big sparks

This is one of those things that we all already essentially know, but I had never really thought about. If you see a giant fire blazing, you never think “wow, it must have taken a huge spark to start it“. A tiny spark can turn into a giant fire just as easily as a huge spark.

With social media, things are heading in the same direction. As I shared earlier this year, the value of having “followers” on social media is plummeting. It’s not a bad thing to have a lot of followers, and it can help a bit, but it matters less and less.

In his book “Contagious“, author Jonah Berger shares this thought from Duncan Watts:

“Describing why a small handful of cool or connected people (so-called influentials) are not as important to social epidemics as we might think, sociologist Duncan Watts makes a nice comparison to forest fires. Some forest fires are bigger than others, but no one would claim that the size of the fire depends on the exceptional nature of the initial spark. Big forest fires aren’t caused by big sparks. Lots of individual trees have to catch fire and carry the flames.”

Your very first post on TikTok could get a million views. The next post from a big influencer might only get 10,000. Your tiny spark can turn into just as large a fire as a huge spark from an influencer. Their big sparks are more likely to catch, but that’s changing quickly.

The quality of every piece of content matters more than the name behind it, so produce great things and hope that some are able to light things up.