Lil Nas X ‘gets’ Seth Godin

Let’s pick up where we left off.  Breaking down Seth Godin’s Marketing in Five Steps.  To recap, the first step was:  Invent a thing worth making, with a story worth telling , and a contribution worth talking about.  

The second step is: 

Design and build it in a way that a few people will particularly benefit from and care about.

Years ago I met a lady who was a teacher and school principal.  She took over a small charter school in a low income area.  Her K-3 classes were full of kids with with low test scores.  In a couple of years she turned the school around.  How did she do it?  With music.  

It seems math, science, and things that bore the pants off 2nd graders is more fun when you sing it. She said the tougher the child or learning disability the better singing and music is for them.

Surely you’d think the media would pick up on this.  They should be implementing programs like this all over town, right?  

Nope.  Almost no one knows about what she does and most educators don’t care.  They think she’s crazy or that her school is an isolated case. That kind of thing can’t work “here”…

Famous rapper Lil Nas X used to be an aspiring rapper on Twitter.  He promoted his songs using memes and short videos. You’d think an aspiring rapper would file his song on the Billboard rap charts.  Where everyone loves rap.  He didn’t.  Nas listed his song Old Town Road on the country chart.

Almost no one cared.  Except Billboard who removed Old Town Road for “not being a country song”.  With all the chatter Billboard’s decision caused, two weeks later Nas’ song was No. 1.

Build it and they will come.  No.  This ain’t field of dreams.  

Build it for one, make it cool, and she will tell her friend.  That’s what Seth is talking about.

Adam