Contagious
by
Jonah Berger

“Just as people use money to buy products or services, they use social currency to achieve desired positive impressions among their families, friends, and colleagues,” writes Berger. “So to get people talking, companies and organizations need to mint social currency. Give people a way to make themselves look good while promoting their products and ideas along the way.” 

The key to finding inner remarkability, says Berger, is to consider what makes something interesting, surprising, or novel. One way to generate surprise, for instance, is by breaking a pattern people have come to expect. Barclay Prime, a Philly-based restaurant, got buzz by selling a $100 cheesesteak. It defied expectations and, thus, got people talking.It’s possible to find the inner remarkability in any product or idea by thinking about what makes something stand out. Blendtec, for instance, was able to get millions of people talking about their products with a series of YouTube infomercials.

Game mechanics are the elements of a game, application, or program—including rules and feedback loops—that make them fun and compelling. What’s interesting about game mechanics, though, is they motivate on an interpersonal level by encouraging social comparison.We don’t just care about others are doing; we care about our performance compared to others. We care about hierarchy, and for that reason, game mechanics generate social currency. Why? Because doing well makes us look good.Game mechanics boost word of mouth because people want to show off their achievements, but along the way, they talk about the brands (e.g., Delta or Twitter) or domains (e.g., our golf handicaps or kids’ SAT scores) where they achieved. Leveraging game mechanics requires quantifying performance. But if a product or idea doesn’t automatically do that, it needs to be “gamified.” Furthermore, leveraging game mechanics involves helping people publicize their achievements. Foursquare, the location-based social networking website, lets users check in at bars, restaurants, and other locations using their mobile devices. Checking in helps people find their friends, but Foursquare also awards special badges to users based on their check-in history.

Scarcity and exclusivity boost word of mouth by making people feel like insiders. “If people get something not everyone else has, it makes them feel special, unique, high status,” writes Berger. “And because of that, they’ll not only like a product or service more, but tell others about it. Why? Because telling others makes them look good. Having insider knowledge is social currency.”

New food products, for instance, rely on immediate word of mouth. If consumers don’t immediately start buying a new anticholesterol spread, the store may stop stocking it. Other products or ideas, by contrast, like anti-bullying campaigns and new policy initiatives, benefit more from ongoing word of mouth.

Why? Because accessible thoughts and ideas lead to action. Berger ever found that different locations contain different triggers. In one study, voters were more likely to vote in favor of school funding when the polling place was a school.

Products and ideas have habitats or sets of triggers that cause people to think about them. What’s more, it’s possible to grow an idea’s habitat by creating new links to stimuli in the environment. Kit Kat wouldn’t normally be associated with coffee, but through repeated pairing in an ad campaign, it was able to link the two and lift sales by 8 percent.When choosing a trigger, pick one that occurs frequently and happens near the desired behavior is taking place. Lastly, forge a fresh one rather than link a product or idea that is already associated with many things. Triggers and cues lead people to talk, choose, and use. Social currency gets people talking, but Triggers keep them talking. Top of mind means tip of the tongue.

In an analysis of thousands of New York Times articles to better understand why certain pieces of online content are widely shared, Berger found that positive articles were more likely to be highly shared than negative ones. No surprise there. After all, when we care, we share. But that wasn’t the full picture.

So, to make products or ideas catch on, focus on feelings; the underlying emotions that motivate people to action. What’s more, remember to pick ones that kindle the fire, activate people, and drive them to action. On the positive side, excite people or inspire them by showing them how they can make a difference. On the negative side, make people mad, not sad. 

Virality is most valuable when the brand or product benefit is integral to the story. When it’s woven so deeply into the narrative that people can’t tell the story without mentioning it.In trying to craft contagious content, valuable virality is critical. That means making the idea or desired benefit a key part of the narrative. Certain characteristics make products and ideas more likely to be talked about and shared.

Offering practical value not only helps make things contagious, but it also strengthens social bonds.If Social Currency is about information senders and how sharing makes them look, Practical Value is mostly about the information receiver.

Instead, they are based on psychological principles of how people perceive and process information.One of the main tenets of prospect theory is that people don’t evaluate things in absolute terms. They evaluate them relative to a comparison standard, or “reference point.”In one study, using the word “sale” beside a price increased sales even though the price itself stayed the same.Diminishing sensitivity reflects the idea that the same change has a smaller impact the farther it is from the reference point.

This can be because the actual deal itself exceeds expectations (for example, the percentage off is so unbelievable) or because the way the deal is framed makes it seem that way.Another factor that affects whether deals seem valuable is its availability. That’s why restricting availability through scarcity and exclusivity makes things seem more valuable.Another framing factor that impacts practical value is how promotional offers are expressed. Some offers are expressed in dollars off, or absolute discounts ($5 or $50 off). Other offers are expressed in percentage off, or relative discounts (5 percent or 50 percent off).

For things like laptops or other big-ticket items, framing price reductions in dollar terms (rather than percentage terms) makes them seem like a better offer. If the product’s price is less than $100, the Rule of 100 says that percentage discounts will seem larger.In thinking about why some useful content gets shared more, a couple of points are worth noting. The first is how the information is packaged. The second key is the audience.Of the six principles of contagiousness that Berger discusses in the book, Practical Value may be the easiest to apply.

Why? Because observable things are also more likely to be discussed. The more public a product or service is, the more it triggers people to take action.

Every email sent from Hotmail, for instance, had a link that said, “Get Your Private, Free E-mail from Hotmail at www.hotmail.com.”Designing products that advertise themselves is a particularly powerful strategy for small companies or organizations that don’t have a lot of resources.                

We need to be like Lululemon and Livestrong and create behavioral residue, discernible evidence that sticks around even after people have used our product or engaged with our ideas.