From Viral Article To Viable Business: Seth Adam Smith 'Marriage Is Not For You'

I connected with 28-year-old author and entrepreneur Seth Adam Smith this week through an introduction. Does his name sound familiar? It should. Smith is the writer behind the wildly viral “Marriage Is Not For You” blog post last November that has achieved 30 million views, has been translated into 20 languages, and has landed him on media outlets including CNN, Today, GMA and Huffington Post.

I recall my son and daughter-in-law sharing his article on Facebook. His blog appeared on Nov. 2 of last year, 16 days prior to my own brush with viral article infamy when I published “Mentally Strong People: The 13 Things They Avoid” based on information from psychotherapist Amy Morin (now a fellow Forbes contributor) on November 18. That article has received more than 9.5M views and has been instrumental in taking Morin’s mental-strength message worldwide, resulting in a deal with Harper Collins for her upcoming book (go, Amy!) and has created a tremendous audience and following for us both.

But Seth’s article didn’t appear on a platform like Forbes.com with 55M-plus monthly views. It appeared on the blog ForwardWalking.com that he directed as editor-in-chief, averaging 200-300 visits a day and on a great day would perhaps reach 3,000. He anticipated perhaps 1,000 or so views.

Nine months later, Smith is an internet phenomenon with 110,000 email and Facebook subscribers to his blog at SethAdamSmith.com. His site receives 10,000 visits a day. He has multiple book contracts, an ongoing column on Huffington Post, national speaking engagements, and a TEDx talk in the works for October. I wasn’t nosey enough to ask his income, but Smith acknowledges that writing and speaking are the centerpiece of his entrepreneurial business and have now become his full time career.

In a world where traditional journalism careers are imploding and book authors are appearing by the thousands, how did Smith accomplish this breakthrough? With my son and writing collaborator Craig Snapp, we talked to Smith about how he succeeded in building an audience so quickly, and how entrepreneurs can convert viral attention into sustainable business. Smith's advice is as follows:

1. There is actually no such thing as “overnight success.” With apologies for disappointing, Smith breaks the news that the idea of overnight fame (at least the kind that can be most successfully translated into a long term business) seldom, if ever, exists. In actuality, he has been involved in social media for years. He’s been producing YouTube videos since 2005, and learned a great deal in the process. “When people say I achieved success overnight—actually, I didn’t. I’ve been working really hard at figuring out social media and publishing for a very long time,” he said.
2. Likewise, there’s no such thing as cracking the “surefire formula” for a viral article. In fact, the more you consciously try to create a viral article, the more likely you’ll fail (and look ridiculously foolish in the public eye for the effort). The public decides what does and doesn’t whet their appetites for responding and sharing, and it is risky to attempt to consciously manipulate those feelings and needs.
3. However, viral articles do contain common threads. The messages that are the most heartfelt and sincere, without any kind of conscious agenda, tend to be the ones that go viral. Likewise, an ironic principle or perhaps a concept that is shockingly ridiculous can sometimes cause a piece to go viral. For example, the surprising twist in Smith’s post that the statement “marriage isn’t for you” wasn’t the dismissal of personal responsibility you might expect from the title, but was in fact just the opposite, has likely contributed to the immediate draw.  But, as Smith notes, the gratuitous “hey, hey, look at me” pieces will generally fall flat.
4. A winning article can be a long time in the planning, but surprisingly easy to write. “When I wrote the marriage article, it was actually one of the quicker things I’d written,” Smith says. “I’d thought about the idea for a long time. Then, after a fight Kim and I had, everything clicked and I wrote it all down. A friend of mine, an editor, looked at it and recommended a couple of tweaks, and then I published it. The total effort took me maybe three hours."  This was true of the “13 things” article as well—I had written it in the space of several hours as a means of sharing hard-won and heartfelt advice with other entrepreneurs. Amy Morin reports the same experience in her creation of the original list of the 13 items—the thoughts came to her as vital principles that she memorialized as quickly as she could get them typed up into print.
5. Opposition is a hidden blessing.  There will be the inevitable critics who feel the need to eviscerate a popular article by taking a contrarian view. For example, several writers jumped forward with “Here’s the deal, Smith is wrong,” articles in the wake of Smtith’s viral success. He rode them out, and the naysayers actually spurred the success of his original piece even more. “My own brother finally posted on Facebook, jokingly, ‘If I see your face on this article one more time, I think I’m probably going to lose it.’” The attention to Smith’s initial article has calmed down, but attention to his role as an author has picked up in a different way: “I’ve always wanted to publish books,” he says. “It’s been a lifelong dream—fiction, nonfiction, everything. I’ve written and submitted lots of things. The publishing companies weren’t interested because I didn’t have a name. But when you are showing movement, have a platform going and are doing monumental things—now I can go back to the publishers and demonstrate the way I am working with legions of people who are interested in these same things, and now they are willing to go forward.”
6. When an article goes viral it creates opportunities. Play them well. I note the case of Drew Conrad, the content management lead for the Salt Lake Company ZAGG (they make the iphone and ipad screen covers we all see). Conrad says that of 100 blogs the company writes, perhaps one will go viral, but when it does, it creates so much opportunity it makes the entire 100 worthwhile. But a viral experience isn’t necessarily a ride to success. In another example, a regional mom and dad suddenly hit the news when photos of the dad teaching his daughter a modesty lesson by wearing a pair of “short shorts” into a restaurant went viral. The parents took the opportunity to adopt new careers as public speakers and may well succeed, but in truth, many find the effort to forge a career from a wildly viral experience is an uphill climb. "You keep hearing, ‘You can’t sustain yourself on writing—it’s not a career—just keep it as a hobby.’” Smith takes nothing for granted and the career success his viral experience has given him is hard-won.
7. Be very clear about your message. “People wanted me to write books and give seminars about love and marriage,” Smith says, “but that was the wrong message for me. I’m not the expert of marriage. In fact, in my article, I wasn’t at all the hero of that story; the hero was Kim. It was about the lesson I learned from my dad and from Kim. Yet I was confronted with a huge influx of people who were interested in love and marriage topics, and I had to find a way to bridge that gap.” Smith thought his options through carefully and came to realize that the better message and mantra that would work for him as a public identity would be “Self Help in a Selfless Way.” It has worked. To yield to the pressure to base his career on the theme of his viral article, he realizes, would have been a mistake.
8. Manage your media opportunities with care. “We had no publicity agent,” Smith says. “The media came to us. The Today Show was the first to call, then Good Morning America came over and asked if they could bring a crew and filmed us for 3–4 hours. Fox & Friends was the first big interview, but until we went over there, Kim didn’t realize it was a national television interview. She thought it was a local Sarasota affiliate. But one after another, the offers rolled in. The media outlets were all competing with each other and we had to decide what to do. Which offers should we take? If we do this, the other won’t be interested.”  While professional agents might be helpful, it’s important to realize that public attention can be a fickle commodity and nobody is able to predict the right answers with 100% success. Smith and his wife have used their own instincts to manage their route, and it has been serving them well.
9. Pattern your success by finding great role models. This does not apply only to internet marketing heroes and personalities such as Brian Tracy, et al. For Smith, one of his key heroes has been Frederick Douglass, the famous former slave and emancipation activist from the 1800s. Smith has been motivated by the speech Douglass presented multiple times in the mid-1800s about Self Made Men, and he particularly likes Douglass’ sentiments about the vital role of hard work:  I am certain that there is nothing good, great or desirable which man can possess in this world, that does not come by some kind of labor of physical or mental, moral or spiritual. A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing. What is true in the world of matter, is equally true in the world of the mind. Without culture there can be no growth; without exertion, no acquisition; without friction, no polish; without labor, no knowledge; without action, no progress and without conflict, no victory.

10. Having a platform opens the opportunity to accomplish big goals in addition to business. In addition to revenue, the ability to inspire and command attention allows an entrepreneur to rally attention to worthwhile causes. In Smith’s case, he has been very open about his longtime struggle with depression. (In fact he attempted to take his life at age 20 and has written about that experience openly.) Smith writes and speaks about depression frequently and it is one of the topics that has galvanized the interest of readers who are dealing with these issues as well. As an example, one of the initiatives Smith is currently calling attention to is the program started by Sean and Rebecca Covey in honor of their daughter, Rachel Covey, who suffered from depression and passed away in 2012, Bridle Up Hope (www.bridleuphope.org). This is an organization that provides horse riding lessons coupled with life enrichment support to girls age 12-25. (My daughter Nadia participates in the program and it is also my company’s philanthropic program of choice, which is one of the reasons the program’s executive director, Stefan Harlan, was keen on introducing me to Smith.)

As we wrapped up our conversation, it was clear that Smith is living the messages he writes about in his posts. He is on his way to speak to a youth group in North Carolina this week. He’s excited about the prospect, but notes with chagrin as a working author that “the wifi access is possibly ‘iffy’.” He has just come back from a visit to Russia where he met with a publisher interested in obtaining the Russian publishing rights to his newest book. Amazon shows several books available from Smith—his first, Marriage Isn’t for You, is available now, and the book he’s launching on September 10, is available for pre-order: Your Life Isn’t For You: A Selfish Person’s Guide to Being Selfless. A third book, You, Unstuck: You Are the Solution to Your Greatest Problem, is slated for January 2015.

“I never could have predicted this,” he says. “It’s amazing beyond anything I could have imagined. The article has become a springboard.”

It’s an entrepreneurial catalyst that began with a single post.

For those who would like to subscribe to Smith’s blogs or to connect with him further, you can find him on Facebook, can follow his Huffington Post columns, and can subscribe to his blog via his website at www.sethadamsmith.com.

Additional editing for this article has been provided by writer and editor W. Craig Snapp