Tension creates action.

Photo by James Allen on Unsplash

Contributing to The Carbon Alamanac was an unbelievable experience. Hearing Seth Godin talking about it on the Tim Ferriss podcast recently reminded me of something Seth said about promotion while creating The Almanac.

All successful cultural promotion (be it books, public health issues etc), operate in a loop:

1) Awareness

2) Tension

In this loop, it’s easy to focus on just awareness. It shows up in statements like “Get the word out”, “Build hype” and “Create some promo”.

But to leave it there is a mistake because awareness without tension is a waste of time.

Think of it like pulling back a rubber band. WHY would someone who becomes aware of your message take action? Is the action to buy your product, sign up to your newsletter, tell a friend?

Now here is the third (often ignored) step:

Why would this person, who became aware of your message and then experienced the tension and the release, tell someone else?

Tension creates action. If that action causes someone to tell 5 people, that’s good.

Most hype leads to zero real results. It’s the cycle that matters.