Just yesterday, AdAge released a thought-provoking article on what’s plaguing viral marketing. Sociology professor Duncan Watts sheds light on some interesting aspects, with the crux of his argument being that “even if influentials are several times as influential as a normal person, they have little impact beyond their own immediate neighborhood.”

Although he analyzes this specifically with respect to viral marketing, it is worth looking at this argument in the larger picture of how brands may be able to create this same viral effect. What Watts implies in the article is that a brand idea or a trend ends up getting diluted as it travels farther out of the influentials’ control. So, while the idea might gather more of a reach, it diminishes in traction and is eventually outlived by fresher, newer ideas that demand consumers’ attention.

Creating a large-scale behavioral shift to trigger a disproportionate big change is something worthwhile to think about. Watts suggests that targeting a large number of easily influenced people might effect the desired change (big-seed marketing). I am skeptical about the advice. This essentially means that the idea will then have to travel upstream to reach the influentials. This seems counter-intuitive in creating an incremental advantage that only the influentials may be able to best deliver.

So, here’s the $64,000 question. Is there a better way that a brand idea can navigate through this complex social world and yet keep increasing in strength to sustain itself? In this world where “cool and desirable” are constantly changing, trends are constantly being outlived as new ones emerge. And, it is the influentials that are creating these very trends. So, instead of “trickling down,” can we “trickle in” and keep the influentials feeding off each other’s discoveries, which will in turn affect the mass?

One clear example of a brand that seems to be playing in this territory is Firefox. Targeting these very influentials helped (Mozilla) Firefox to “trickle in” its efforts to preserve meaningful choice and promote innovation on the internet. By targeting the tech-savvy mavens, Firefox soon started gaining in popularity. In the process, it gathered a dedicated following of influentials who helped it remain ahead of the technology curve by developing more applications/clients, spreading the news and rapidly influencing adoption.

Today, viral marketing is based completely on a scatter gun approach, and maybe that’s why Watts admits that we cannot predict what is going to happen. We need strategies that depend on being able to measure things very well. This gives credence to the Peter Drucker quote, “You cannot manage what you cannot control, and you cannot control what you cannot measure.”

So, how does this alter our perspectives on viral marketing, if at all?