“Failing is one of the greatest arts in the world. One fails toward success.” – Seth Godin
Philosophers,
I’m writing to you as someone who is bed-ridden with the full-blown flu. The aches, chills, and sleepless nights kind that can drive you a little crazy.
My brain isn’t working.
Before I developed flu-brain, I was going to share a couple thoughts after seeing the movie Here, which reunites Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis with co-stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. I’m sure the movie isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I thought it told a story that featured a sense of place in a creative way that I’ve never seen before. But I might save that for another time.
Instead, I thought I would be transparent about the very thing underlying this Selling Plato project: marketing.
Earlier today, I got a surprising notification on my phone. Keep in mind I was bed-ridden and foggy-brained, so my excitement was diminished quite a bit, but I looked and saw this:
Out of nowhere—meaning days after I posted and without tagging them—Princeton University reposted my post about my recent episode! Very cool, huh?
Setting aside the recent controversies around Ivy Leagues, this is an institution that has changed the world throughout the centuries. Presidents, Supreme Court justices, scientists and mathematicians like Turing, Feynman, Einstein.
Also, the account has over half a million followers.
I should stress that I find it pretty nauseating when accounts make “engagement”, “reach”, and numbers-based metrics the top or only priority when posting. That kind of posting just seems like they are speaking to a bloodless algorithm, not to persons. But a tangible “I like this” point of engagement is admittedly nice to get, especially when it isn’t by design.
Now, that happened about 9am ET this morning, and it is now eight hours later. With almost all my posts about podcast episodes, I include a link to the episode on YouTube. Boasting over half a million followers, can you take a guess at how many likes, reposts, and YouTube views and subscribers I received since their promo?
Let me verify those stats again.
5 likes
0 reposts
0 YouTube subscribers
1 YouTube episode view
So far, that’s the grand total.
The obvious question is, “Why?”
I have no idea. What made Princeton University’s social media person go, “This is interesting, and I think it would be interesting to our distinguished audience” and almost the entirety of its audience go, “Meh”?
I don’t tell this story for any sympathy or to complain. Well, maybe only a little, but that’s the flu-brain talking. I mainly tell the story to give visibility into what it’s like to try and market philosophical material; what it’s like to try and make it appealing. It absolutely could be my own failures as an amateur marketer.
As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s also entirely possible that I’m trying to make something appealing that is intrinsically unappealing, and giving myself an impossible task. A fool’s errand, where I’m the fool.
But I’m not yet convinced that’s the case (the impossible task part, not the “I’m the fool” part). And if you have a better idea on how to market any of this, I am all ears.
Speaking of material that’s appealing, I am legitimately excited about the upcoming episodes of the podcast. Next week another episode will come out, and I have a couple in the queue and more scheduled that I do think you’ll really like.
Hint: if you think there might be problems with academia and with the medical industry, stay tuned.
Until next time.
Jared
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