Member-only story
How to Win the Social Media Lottery
A Glimpse into the Metagame of Attention
Angellist founder Naval Ravikant writes, “Every single tweet costs nothing and has the potential to reach the entire world.
“It’s the best lottery ever made.”
It’s difficult to predict what will be a hit or not, and luck is a factor, so the metaphor of a lottery works. Artist Pharell Williams calls himself “ the Mr. Magoo of music;” despite making so many hits, he still doesn’t know why they work. But of course, Pharrell knows that music isn’t entirely a lottery. And Naval knows that Twitter isn’t entirely a lottery. It’s a combination of luck and skill. Here are some conditions and skills that can set you up win the social media lottery:
Leading Thinkers are Memelords
One person replies to Naval, “But one where a winner keeps winning. Case in point, you.” Naval replies, “I’m playing the same lottery as you. The only difference is that I’ve figured out one of the winning numbers in advance.”
The key to winning the lottery is people paying attention to you. People with an audience, relationships, and reputation get to win the lottery more often because they scratch fewer numbers; people are already interested in them. To build on Naval’s analogy, some people, like Kanye…
