# Apply Domain

> Adapt memetics playbooks to specific application domains (personal branding, product launches, social movements, etc.). Takes general memetics strategy and tailors it to domain-specific contexts, metrics, and tactics. [NEEDS SOURCE MATERIAL] Source provides brief examples of three domains but doesn't fully detail the domain-specific playbooks. Each domain needs detailed expansion.

- Skill: `gnurio/apply-domain` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add gnurio/apply-domain`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/gnurio/apply-domain/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Coding & Dev Tools
- Author: gnurio (https://skillmd.com/u/gnurio)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/gnurio/apply-domain

---


# Apply Domain-Specific Strategy

You are adapting general memetics principles to a specific domain.

## What This Skill Does

Takes general memetics strategies and adapts them for specific domains:
- **Personal Branding** - Building thought leadership and audience
- **Product Launches** - Achieving market adoption and dominance
- **Social Movements** - Creating cultural and value change
- [Other domains as needed]

Outputs domain-optimized playbook with domain-specific tactics, metrics, and timelines.

## Input/Output Contract

**Accepts:**
- Domain (personal branding | product launch | social movement)
- Classified idea (meme | antimeme | supermeme)
- Fitness assessment (GO-level commitment)
- General strategy (already designed)

**Produces:**
- Domain-specific playbook
- Domain-specific metrics
- Domain-specific timelines
- Domain-specific risk factors
- Examples from similar domain success

**Passes to:** Terminal (execution phase for domain)

## [NEEDS SOURCE MATERIAL]

Source provides brief overviews for three domains (lines 205-226):

**Personal Branding:**
1. Build memetic library
2. Pick villain
3. Create rituals
4. Niche down
5. Secondary channels

**Product Launches:**
1. Meme strategy (short-term)
2. Antimeme strategy (long-term)
3. Narrative warfare
4. Network mapping
5. Champion recruitment

**Social Movements:**
1. Assess position
2. Follow playbooks
3. Network building
4. Long timeline

But each needs full detail:
- Step-by-step implementation
- Domain-specific metrics
- Risk factors
- Timeline expectations
- Examples and case studies

## Domain 1: Personal Branding / Thought Leadership

### What This Domain Is

Building yourself as a recognized authority and trusted voice in a specific domain.

**Success Metrics:**
- Audience size (followers, newsletter subscribers)
- Engagement rate (people actually read/respond)
- Authority perception (recognized as expert)
- Economic value (ability to monetize)

### General Playbook for Personal Branding

**Step 1: Build Memetic Library (Create Experiences, Not Memes)**
- Collect reusable hooks, frameworks, metaphors
- Signature ideas you're known for
- 3-5 core concepts you repeat
- Examples and stories illustrating each
- **Vibes > Memes:** Create experiences that resist precise definition rather than trying to engineer replicable content. Focus on community, culture, and belonging rather than formulaic attention-grabbing.

**Step 2: Pick Your Villain**
- What are you fighting against?
- System, company, idea - not person
- Credibility anchor (you're against X, therefore for Y)
- Example: Fighting "conventional wisdom" ⟹ for "original thinking"
- Note: "It's more prestigious — by mimetic standards — to use proven formulas for grabbing attention than to do something risky and original" — personal brands that take genuine creative risks stand out BECAUSE most people don't.

**Step 3: Create Rituals**
- Consistent posting schedule
- Regular newsletter/essay
- Weekly podcast or video
- Daily standup or thought
- Frequency builds "symptomatic period"

**Step 4: Niche Down**
- Target specific domain/audience
- Smart people in your niche value you more
- Easier to become "top voice" in niche
- Don't try to appeal to everyone

**Step 5: Secondary Channels (Risk Management)**
- Test riskier ideas on alt account
- Experiment without brand risk
- Some experiments move to main
- Keep brand consistent, reserve experimental
- Strategy: Use secondary account for the risky, experimental work while primary builds credibility through proven approaches

### Domain-Specific Metrics

**Audience Growth:**
- Followers per month (trending up?)
- Newsletter open rate (>30% is good)
- Monthly active readers
- Follower quality (engaged vs. passive)

**Content Performance:**
- Engagement rate (likes, replies, shares / impressions)
- Reach trend (increasing or plateau?)
- Viral posts (which content resonates?)
- Click-through if you link externally

**Influence Metrics:**
- Are people citing you?
- Are people interviewing you?
- Are people building on your ideas?
- Industry recognition?

**Economic Metrics:**
- Consulting/speaking opportunities
- Product/course sales
- Sponsorship opportunities
- Community membership revenue

### Timeline Expectations

- **Year 1:** Building foundation, 0-1000 followers, establishing voice
- **Year 2:** Growing audience, 1000-10K followers, becoming recognized
- **Year 3:** Authority emerging, 10K-50K followers, opportunities increasing
- **Year 4-5:** Established authority, 50K+ followers, high influence

---

## Domain 2: Product Launches / Marketing

### What This Domain Is

Getting adoption for a new product, service, or company in competitive market.

**Success Metrics:**
- Customer acquisition cost
- Market share in category
- Time to profitability
- Brand awareness in target market
- Customer lifetime value

### General Playbook for Product Launches

**Step 1: Meme Strategy (Short-term awareness)**
- Viral content for broad awareness
- Lightweight, shareable messaging
- Reach new audiences quickly
- Quick decision to try product

**Step 2: Antimeme Strategy (Long-term believers)**
- Build core believers who evangelize
- Deep engagement with early adopters
- Community building around product
- Long-term loyalty and expansion
- Use private/dense networks to refine before public launch

**Step 2.5: Memetic/Antimemetic City Dependency**
- Memetic and antimemetic cities depend on each other: the stronger memes become, the more we need private spaces to refine them
- Product launches should use dense networks (beta groups, private communities) to refine before going sparse (public launch)
- Test and iterate in Phase 1 (dark forest / private beta), emerge in Phase 2 (coordinated emergence with handpicked networks), then go public in Phase 3

**Step 3: Narrative Warfare**
- Control story about your category
- What is the conversation about?
- Position your product as solution
- Create language you want others to use

**Step 4: Network Mapping**
- Identify dense networks of early adopters
- Who are connected to early adopters?
- Which networks have lowest resistance?
- Where should you launch first?

**Step 5: Champion Recruitment (Open Source Lesson Applied)**
- Find advocates willing to promote for years
- Influencers, community leaders, experts
- Create program with incentives
- Long-term engagement vs. one-off
- **Open Source Lesson:** After talking to hundreds of developers, most projects were built by one or a few developers who faced burdensome demands for customer support. Open, borderless communities were a recipe for entitlement, rather than collaboration. Movements and products that go fully open too early face the same problem. Start dense, go sparse strategically.

### Domain-Specific Metrics

**Acquisition Metrics:**
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Conversion rate (visitors → customers)
- Viral coefficient (are customers bringing others?)
- Time to first customer

**Market Metrics:**
- Market share in category
- Category awareness trend
- Brand sentiment (positive/negative)
- Share of voice vs. competitors

**Retention Metrics:**
- Churn rate (% of customers leaving)
- Customer lifetime value (CLV)
- Repeat purchase rate
- Net promoter score (would customers recommend?)

**Growth Metrics:**
- Month-over-month growth rate
- Viral growth rate (word-of-mouth)
- Secondary product adoption
- Market expansion to new segments

### Timeline Expectations

- **Months 1-3:** Private beta, core believers, viral coefficient testing
- **Months 3-6:** Public launch, meme strategy (awareness), initial adoption
- **Months 6-12:** Market fit validation, champion recruitment, community building
- **Year 2:** Scale phase, narrative dominance, market expansion

---

## Domain 3: Social Movements / Cultural Change

### What This Domain Is

Creating lasting cultural or value shift in large populations.

**Success Metrics:**
- % of population belief shift
- Policy influence (laws/rules changed)
- Cultural practice change
- Movement size and commitment

### General Playbook for Social Movements

**Step 1: Assess Current Position**
- Is idea meme (spreads naturally)?
- Is idea antimeme (hard to spread)?
- Is idea supermeme (spreading parasitically)?
- Different approaches per type

**Step 2: If Antimeme - Follow Dark Forest → Tipping Point**
- Phase 1: Private development with believers
- Phase 2: Coordinated emergence (semi-private)
- Phase 3: Tipping point (public)
- Timeline: 3-10 years typical

**Step 3: If Supermeme - Narrow and Reframe**
- Don't amplify supermeme characteristics
- Find tractable sub-problems
- Create measurable goals
- Prevent attention consumption

**Step 4: Navigate Institutional Bottlenecks**
- Social institutions are the bottlenecks through which all ideological demands must eventually pass
- Culture wars intensify when too many competing ideas are jostling for limited paths to change
- Movements must identify and navigate institutional bottlenecks, not just build public support
- Map which institutions control policy, culture, practice in your domain
- Target bottleneck entry points strategically

**Step 5: Network Building (Start Dense, Go Sparse)**
- Create private spaces for believers
- Develop shared language
- Build trust and commitment
- Create community culture
- Start with dense networks before going sparse
- Movements that go fully open too early face entitlement and dilution

**Step 6: Long Timeline**
- Plan for 5-10 year effort minimum
- First 2 years: mostly failure
- Champions need to persist through doubt
- Cultural shift doesn't happen quickly

### Domain-Specific Metrics

**Belief Change:**
- % of population aware of idea
- % of population accepting idea
- Belief strength (deep vs. surface)
- Demographic breakdown

**Policy Influence:**
- Laws/rules changed favoring movement
- Resources allocated to issue
- Government/institution acknowledgment
- Policy implementation

**Cultural Practice:**
- Are people acting on the belief?
- New norms emerging
- Social cost changing (easier to do)
- Intergenerational transmission

**Movement Strength:**
- Number of active members
- Geographic spread
- Diversity of participants
- Commitment level (what will they do?)

### Timeline Expectations

- **Years 1-2:** Core group formation, message development, slow recruitment
- **Years 2-4:** Expanding networks, increasing visibility, facing opposition
- **Years 4-7:** Tipping point approaching, policy attention, cultural shift becoming visible
- **Years 7-10:** Mainstream adoption, new generation integration, idea becoming "obvious"

---

## How to Adapt to Your Domain

### Step 1: Identify Your Domain

- What are you trying to accomplish?
- Personal brand, product, movement, other?
- What's the primary success metric?

### Step 2: Understand Domain Dynamics

- What accelerates in your domain?
- What slows things down?
- What are standard timelines?
- What resources matter most?

### Step 3: Customize the Playbook

- Which steps from general playbook apply?
- Which need domain modification?
- What domain-specific tactics matter?
- What are domain-specific risks?

### Step 4: Set Domain-Specific Metrics

- What can you measure?
- What indicates progress?
- What indicates problems?
- How often to measure?

### Step 5: Plan Domain Timeline

- How long will this realistically take?
- What are phase milestones?
- When should you reassess?
- When should you pivot vs. persist?

## Output Template

```markdown
## Domain-Specific Strategy

**Domain:** [Personal Branding | Product Launch | Social Movement]
**Your Goal:** [Specific outcome you want]
**Timeline:** [Realistic duration]

---

## Domain Characteristics

**What accelerates in this domain:** [Specific factors]
**What slows things down:** [Barriers and resistance]
**Standard timelines:** [Industry expectations]
**Key resources:** [Money, people, visibility, etc.]

---

## Adapted Playbook

**Step 1:** [Domain-specific version]
**Step 2:** [Domain-specific version]
**Step 3:** [Domain-specific version]
**Step 4:** [Domain-specific version]
**Step 5:** [Domain-specific version]

---

## Domain-Specific Metrics

**Metric 1:** [How to measure, target, timeline]
**Metric 2:** [How to measure, target, timeline]
**Metric 3:** [How to measure, target, timeline]

---

## Domain-Specific Risks

**Risk 1:** [What could go wrong, probability, impact, mitigation]
**Risk 2:** [What could go wrong, probability, impact, mitigation]

---

## Implementation Timeline

**Phase 1 (Months 1-X):** [Domain-specific goals]
**Phase 2 (Months X-X):** [Domain-specific goals]
**Phase 3 (Months X-X):** [Domain-specific goals]

---

## Success Looks Like (End of Timeline)

- [Specific outcome 1]
- [Specific outcome 2]
- [Idea is established/dominant in your domain]
```

## Common Domain Application Mistakes

**Mistake 1: Wrong playbook for domain**
- You use personal branding playbook for product launch
- Different dynamics, different success factors
- Fails because it's misaligned
- Fix: Understand domain dynamics first

**Mistake 2: Generic metrics**
- You measure reach instead of domain-relevant metrics
- Track wrong things, miss real progress
- Fix: Define domain-specific success metrics

**Mistake 3: Wrong timeline expectations**
- You think personal brand can scale in 6 months
- Actually takes 3+ years
- Burnout and abandonment
- Fix: Research domain-specific timelines

**Mistake 4: Not customizing tactics**
- You copy playbook exactly
- Domain-specific context matters
- Generic approach doesn't work
- Fix: Adapt to your specific domain

**Mistake 5: Ignoring domain opposition**
- Every domain has different opposition
- Product domains: competitors, distributors
- Movement domains: institutions, opposing beliefs
- Underestimating opposition kills progress
- Fix: Identify domain-specific opposition early

## When to Use This Skill

- **After design-strategy → apply-domain:** Adapt general strategy to domain
- **During execution:** Refer to domain playbook for tactics
- **At reviews:** Check domain-specific metrics

## References

See `/references/source-summary.md`:
- "Practical Applications by Domain" for domain overviews
- "Strategic Playbooks" for general playbook adaptation
- "Examples" for domain-specific case studies