Difficult Second Album Syndrome

difficult
second
album
syndrome
Hannah Smith
Worderist.com

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“You’ve a lifetime
to make your first album,
but only a year or two to make
your second”
(so the saying goes)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
This is often touted as the excuse for that
“difficult second album”
a topic we explored in 2015 for Concert Hotels

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Back then, the data seemed to suggest that
if your first album is well-received
then your second album probably won't be:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Cute… But so what?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Difficult Second Album Syndrome
isn’t unique to music artists

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I think it probably affects everyone

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Today I’m focusing on why this might be a challenge
for people who create content
with the objective of securing links and coverage

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Time is part of the reason that this stuff is hard:
“You’ve a lifetime
to make your first album,
but only a year or two to make
your second”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Although when it comes to commercial creative work our
timelines are even tighter than that

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We’re probably looking at something more like this:
“You’ve a handful of chances
to make your first successful thinger,
and only a month or two to make
your second”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But it’s not just time that we’re working against...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Artist Christoph Niemann
has suggested success might actually
make things more difficult:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“I actually think [success] is a burden…
because I feel like:
well, now I have to repeat this”
~Christoph Niemann, artist, author, & animator.
More on this here:https://worderist.com/2019/07/03/sunday-sketches-by-christoph-niemann/

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
If you’ve ever created a successful piece you’ll likely be
able to relate to that feeling

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But even if you haven’t made a piece
that was successful yet,
you’ll probably have experienced something like this:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“See this thinger that someone else made - it got loads of coverage,
why aren’t we
seeing success like that?”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
As a result, I think that difficult second album syndrome
has the potential to affect everyone

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Even if you’ve not yet had your first big “hit”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Because on some level
we’re all under the same pressure:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We’re often either trying
to replicate our own successes,
or we’re trying to replicate the successes of others

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
we often fail
but we don’t always know why

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& perhaps, as a result,
self-doubt can start creeping in

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
whenever I begin to doubt myself,
a little voice in my head pipes up:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“you're not good enough,
and those past successes were just a fluke”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Maybe your little voice tells you something different

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Maybe you don’t have a little voice
like that in your head at all

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But a lot of us do

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Over the years I’ve tried a bunch of things
to quiet that little voice:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’ve tried to ignore it

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
didn’t work

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’ve attempted to argue with it by seeking out
hard evidence to the contrary:
here are a bunch of things I’ve done which prove I am good at this stuff;
they can’t possibly all be flukes

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’ve got angry at myself
for listening to that little voice

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
that definitely didn’t work -
actually it made me feel much worse

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
this is not a recipe for a happy life
& it makes it much harder to do good work

This year I’ve been doing a course with this absolute Queen
https://roar.training/confidence-now/

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& Kirsty suggested doing something a little different

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“Listen to that little voice & have a think about
what it’s trying to tell you”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
here’s what I think my little voice is trying to tell me:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“You keep on trying to make these things,
and they don’t always work,
and then you feel bad about yourself.
Don’t you think you’d feel better about yourself
if you just stopped doing these things?”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
When things aren’t going well
I do sometimes think:
would I be happier if I didn’t do this job?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
but deep down
I know that doing something other
than what I’m doing right now
would actually make me less happy

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& I have a better relationship with the
voice in my head now

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
It’s still not quiet, and I don’t think it ever will be

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But now I understand what it’s trying to tell me,
I don’t feel the need to try to argue with it,
or get angry with myself about it

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Being less preoccupied with that little voice
has made it easier for me to do my work

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
If you have a similar little voice,
maybe trying that exercise will help you too :)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Ok, that’s enough
about the little voice in my head...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We’re all under much the same pressure:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Today I’m going to explore
why we fail
(or, more accurately, why I think we fail)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Let’s do this :)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
If we’re seeking to recreate the success of another piece,
first we need to understand why the
original piece was successful

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& we think we ought to be pretty good at this

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
because we’re programmed to spot patterns

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
the trouble is, our ability to spot patterns
doesn’t necessarily serve us well

I think “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” is a great example of this:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
In 2013 Elisa Lam, a young Canadian traveller,
goes missing, and is eventually
found dead at the hotel

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But what happened to her?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“internet sleuths” came up with a
range of theories:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
she was killed by a Mexican death metal singer,
she was the victim of a copycat killing
inspired by the 2005 horror flick Dark Water,
she was involved in an international conspiracy
to spread a new strain of tuberculosis...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
All of those theories were based on
patterns that were spotted

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
trouble is, those patterns were just coincidences

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
we are great at spotting patterns
BUT
we find it much harder to distinguish
whether or not those patterns are meaningful

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Perhaps you think that you are immune...

You know Nicholas Cage films do not cause people to drown in swimming pools

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
That still might not protect you

Meet Will Critchlow - he’s smart, right?

Back in 2015 a bunch of us at Distilled were fascinated by the success of this piece

Difficult Second Album Syndrome

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I don’t think that “BEER” was the reason
this piece was successful...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
If “beer” was the reason, then
every piece about beer would be successful
& that’s definitely not the case

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
The trouble is, we often absorb
thinking like this...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
sensemaking
The process by which people give meaning to their collective experiences, an
idea introduced by Karl Weick in 1979.

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Sensemaking is not just about how individuals make sense of things,
it’s about how organisations
(or groups of people) make sense of things

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Weick noted:
People favour plausibility over accuracy
in accounts of events and contexts

When thinking about why a piece was successful,
we’re often guilty of jumping quickly to a plausible explanation, then moving on

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But one person, getting one thing a bit wrong
shouldn’t be a problem, right?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Sensemaking is a social activity:
plausible stories are preserved, retained, & shared

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We absorb these plausible stories
& they affect the way we interpret future events

If we accept that “beer” is the reason this piece is successful...

What happens when we see another successful piece about beer?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We see a
successful
piece
We conclude
“beer” is the
reason it’s
successful
We see
another
successful
piece
We notice it’s
about beer
too
THERE’S
A PATTERN!
All future successful pieces we
encounter about beer add “evidence”
to support this explanation

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I see this happening in a lot of directions

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
What else do these two piece have in common?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Both maps...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We see a
successful
piece
We conclude
it’s successful
because it’s
a map
We see
another
successful
piece
We notice it’s
a map too
THERE’S
A PATTERN!
encounter which are maps add
“evidence” to support this explanation

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But again, if that was true then every map-based piece
would be successful
& that’s definitely not the case

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
These explanations are both easy to debunk

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& I’m sure that most of you don’t think
“beer” or “map”
is the only reason those pieces were successful

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
perhaps you’d tell me it’s also because:
“they offer journalists something that they don’t have the
time or resource to create themselves”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& I’d acknowledge that yes, that’s true

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
The trouble is I’ve made several pieces
about resonant topics (like beer),
which offered journalists something
they don’t have the time or resource to create themselves...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But nevertheless,
they weren’t all successful

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I think that pretty much any reason you give me,
I could debunk in the same way

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& yet, at various times I have said things like:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“study what works & try to deconstruct why”
~ me in 2013, from Throwing Sh*t Against the Wall & Analysing What Sticks,

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“by deconstructing the success of others you can improve
your own chances”
~ me in 2014, from Appetite for Deconstruction, Lessons in Virality from Axl Rose

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“study successful content & try to figure out why it worked”
~ me in 2016, from How to Build a Time Machine

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’m like a broken record, huh?
(I’m not the only person who’s said this, lots of people have)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& despite saying this a bunch of times,
I wasn’t always that great at actually figuring out
why a piece was successful

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I spent a lot of time looking at successful pieces,
but probably not nearly enough time
looking at the coverage they generated

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Often I’d actually be looking at a successful piece
& trying to slot it neatly into one of my
ready-prepared sensemaking explanations

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
It was a low-effort & pretty comforting way of
feeling like I understood this stuff

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& those explanations aren’t entirely wrong,
but they aren’t actually that helpful

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I still this there’s merit in this advice:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
“study the piece & try to deconstruct why it worked”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But we need to somehow make sure we’re
arriving at a better answer
than “beer” or “map”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We need to ask better questions...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
So, rather than asking myself
“Why was this piece successful?”
I try to answer these questions instead:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
What stories did journalists write
when they covered this piece?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
You could still answer this
in a pretty shallow way

When journalists covered this piece they wrote stories about beer

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Don’t do that...
Look at the stories journalists actually wrote
(For this piece, there were a bunch of different stories - “outrage” at how insipid the winning beers were,
analysis on the 2 major brewers, InBev & SABMiller who own most of these beers, nostalgic travel stories, & more)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Did the coverage of this piece feed into something else
which was going on in the newscycle?
(e.g. another news story, a trend, etc)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Were there waves of coverage that lead to the ultimate
success of this piece?
If one of those things hadn’t happened, would it still have been a success?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
What emotions did this coverage provoke?
(within readers, but also within yourself)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Which verticals (or types of publication)
covered this?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Did this piece get coverage in multiple countries?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
This is way more work though,
do we really need to do all that?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Yep, I think we do…
Here’s why:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Typically we try to replicate success in
one of two ways:
or
“Remake”
same idea &
same topic
“Remix”
same idea,
different topic

This is a remake - it’s a mash-up of publicly available data sources
on the most congested roads

This what we were remaking - it was created by a vehicle tracking company
http://www.satrakvehicletracking.co.uk/blog/uks-slowest-motorways-revealed-satrak/

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
We’ve used a different dataset,
but we’re still answering the same question
the previous piece did
same idea, same topic = remake

This is a remix: it explores what these $1bn companies
& their founders have in common

This is what we were remixing - it explores what the world’s
billionaires have in common

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Both pieces explore the same thing:
“what traits do this cohort share?”
but one looks at Billionaires & the other looks
at Unicorn companies & their founders
same idea, different topic = remix

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I don’t think there’s anything wrong
with doing either of these things
I’ve done both, many times

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But both “remakes” & “remixes” are prone to failure
“Remake”
same idea &
same topic
“Remix”
same idea,
different topic

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Let’s take a closer look

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
remakes

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Remakes often feel like a safe bet,
but that’s not always the case

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
This is best explained with examples, so:
I’m going to take two remakes
& try to determine if they’d still be successful
if we remade them again today

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
The conditions that led to the success of this piece
are alive & well today

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Journalists continue to write stories
about these types of studies
& they don’t seem to mind that the
“winners” don’t change much

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
If you remade this piece with a new dataset
you could reasonably expect to get
similar levels of success even if the
“winners” don’t change*
(*assuming that someone else doesn’t beat you to it)

So remaking this remake is a reasonably safe bet :)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But that’s not always the case...

For this remake, we gathered new data & found a new winner

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Studies about on-screen death counts are not something
entertainment journalists perpetually cover

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
They don’t behave in the same way
as motoring journalists

& early coverage came about because the new “winner”
was surprising & controversial

Shortly after the piece launched,
Director James Gunn shared
a piece of early coverage,
& then spent 2 hours arguing with
people about it on twitter
“No, Stars Wars does not count”

A huge chunk of the coverage the piece subsequently received
was just journalists reporting on James Gunn’s tweets

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
What are the chances of you
replicating that?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
If you fail to find a new “winner”
you’ll almost certainly struggle to get coverage;
(I don’t think Gunn’s going to spend another 2 hours on twitter)
& even with a new winner, you still might struggle

Remaking this piece is not quite such a safe bet

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
what about remixes?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
With remixes the reasons for failure
are slightly different

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Let’s look at a couple:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
As with most remixes, my justification
for making the Candy Crush piece,
was largely based on the success
of the Instagram piece...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I think it went something like this:

This helps people contextualise & understand just how big Instagram is

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& so I asserted:

This will be successful because it will help people contextualise
& understand just how big Candy Crush is

I thought these two topics were broadly comparable &
therefore these pieces would likely share similar levels of success

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But what I failed to acknowledge
was how journalists were writing about
Instagram & Candy Crush were not the same

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& actually, journalists weren’t writing about
Candy Crush much at all

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’d love to tell you that I’ve never made that mistake again

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But I have...

Buoyed by the success of this remix...

We remixed it again (remix the remix), & made something for Crufts
(the piece is no longer live)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But again, I failed to acknowledge
that the way journalists write about Crufts
is not the same as the way they write about
Unicorns & their founders

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’ve frequently been guilty of assuming that
the ways in which journalists write about
different topics are the same,
when often they really aren’t

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Ok, let’s wrap this thing up...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Why do we struggle to recreate
the success of previous pieces?

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Because we often fail to understand
why they really worked

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Trying to answer these questions might give you a clearer understanding:
- Stories
- What stories did journalists write when they covered this piece?
- Trends & other breaking news
- Did the piece feed into something else which was going on in the newscycle?
- Waves
- Were there waves of coverage? What caused those waves?
- Emotions
- What emotions did the coverage provoke?
- Verticals
- Which verticals or types of publication covered this?
- Countries
- Did the piece get coverage in multiple countries?

We see a
successful
piece
We conclude
it’s successful
because it’s
a map
We see
another
successful
piece
We notice it’s
a map too
THERE’S
A PATTERN!
encounter which are maps add
“evidence” to support this explanation
It’s important that we try to do this, because those patterns
we’re so fond of spotting often leave us exposed...

Patterns like “beer” & “map” don’t allow us to acknowledge this stuff:
Remakes fail when we’re not
able to recreate the conditions
which lead to the success of
the original piece
Remixes fail when we don’t
understand what journalists are
actually writing about
in the niche we’re working in
“Remake”
same idea &
same topic
“Remix”
same idea,
different topic

But changing our approach could reduce our exposure:
the original piece
By gaining a clearer
understanding of those conditions
we’re better able to evaluate our
chances of success
“Remake”
same idea &
same topic

The conditions that led to the success of this piece are still in play

So remaking this is a reasonably safe bet

This was a weird outlier - journalists do not perpetually write stories
about studies pertaining to on-screen death counts

Remaking this might not be such a safe bet...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
What about remixes?

Changing our approach might reduce our exposure here too:
By researching what journalists are
writing about in that niche we’re
better able to evaluate our chances of
success
“Remix”
same idea,
different topic

When we launched this piece,
lots of journalists were writing about just how big Instagram was getting

When we launched this piece, Candy Crush had (arguably) already peaked -
no one was writing much about it’s growth

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’d like to leave you with a couple of
final thoughts

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
this stuff is really hard

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
The following stats are from Aira’s
2020 State of Link Building Report

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
28% of us have created a campaign in the last year that
secured no links
Source: https://www.aira.net/state-of-link-building/link-building-process/

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
If you’ve not managed to create a campaign that
achieved over 100 links in the past 12 months,
then you’re not alone:

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
neither have the vast majority -
79% of the respondents surveyed have not seen
this level of success either
Source: https://www.aira.net/state-of-link-building/link-building-process/

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
The vast majority of campaigns created
are not “successful”

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’ve launched far more “misses” than “hits”
& everyone fails a lot more often
than you probably realise
More on this here: https://worderist.com/2019/09/09/skewing-reality/

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
Putting together this talk has been
pretty eye-opening for me

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’ve gone back over a lot of
old talks & blog posts

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
There are a bunch of things that I’ve said
& written in the past which were well-meant...

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
but were either horribly incomplete,
or easy to misinterpret, or both

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& so I’d encourage you to think critically
about what I’ve shared here

Are all campaigns either “remakes” or “remixes”?
“Remake”
same idea &
same topic
“Remix”
same idea,
different topic
Probably not, because this is not the only way we come up with ideas.
I suspect however, that many of the ideas we consider to be original,
are actually either remakes or remixes,
we’re just not necessarily aware of the existence of the originals.

& are these the only reasons we fail?
the original piece
“Remake”
same idea &
same topic
“Remix”
same idea,
different topic

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
nope :(

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
But I’m hoping I’ve given you some
new things to think about :)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& I’ll say it again,
I’d encourage you to think critically
about what I’ve shared here

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
I’d also encourage you to continue to think critically about
some of the explanations of successful pieces
you might have absorbed

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
& remember that beer is rarely the answer :)

@hannah_bo_banna
Worderist.com
thoughts, feelings, questions?
AMA :)
Hannah Smith
Creative Content Consultant
Worderist.com
Wanna hire me?
drop me an email - hannah@worderist.com
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A massive thank you to the amazing humans who helped me put this talk together:
Areej AbuAli, James Barnes, Alex Cassidy, Will Critchlow, Mark Johnstone, & Gisele Navarro.
Image Credits
Every Country’s Most Popular Beer: https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/most-popular-beer-every-country-map/
Brewery Road Trip: https://flowingdata.com/2015/10/26/top-brewery-road-trip-routed-algorithmically/
Highways to Hell: https://www.gocompare.com/new-interactives-content/highways-to-hell/
Slowest Motorways Revealed: http://www.satrakvehicletracking.co.uk/blog/uks-slowest-motorways-revealed-satrak/
Directors’ Cut: https://www.gocompare.com/life-insurance/directors-cut/
The Deadliest Films: http://www.randalolson.com/2013/12/31/deadliest-films-of-all-time-by-on-screen-death-counts/
Photos on the Web: https://cewe-photoworld.com/photos-on-the-web/

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