Blogpost (Digital Marketing)

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Why Some Ideas Spread

MKTG1415/1427 Week 5 Presented by Torgeir Aleti

Social Transmission

• Power of Word Of Mouth (WOM) • Primary factor behind 20-50% of all purchasing decisions

• WOM is the key characteristic that differentiates SM marketing from digital marketing • WOM (or e-WOM or content marketing) is about sharing

something of interest to an audience – it is NOT about advertising.

• WOM is more persuasive than advertising as it comes from a trusted source (with no selling motives) • It is targeted towards the right audience at the right time • We don’t share a story which is not of interest to our audience

Science of social transmission

• Is Virality random? • To understand why some ideas spread, we need

to understand: • Why people talk? (psychology of sharing) • Why certain messages get talked about?

Why some ideas spread • Two philosophies: • Message

• Message characteristics (e.g. Jonah Berger)

• Influentials • Network characteristics (e.g. Malcom Gladwell) • People characteristics (e.g. Seth Godin)

Principles of contagiousness

All six principles may not be needed for a successful campaign. Some of these principles may be more suited for certain types of products.

Social currency

• People like to share their thoughts, opinions and interests • About half the tweets are ‘me’ focussed (which is a

paradox)

• People share things that make them look good to others • Looking good in others’ eyes or desire for social

approval is a fundamental human motivation

• What we talk about influences how others see us • WOM is a prime tool for making a good impression

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Social currency

• To get people talk about our product or message, our message should give them ‘social currency’ or ‘bragging rights’

• How can talking about our brand make a person look good? • Showing remarkability • Leveraging game mechanics • Making people feel like insiders

Inner remarkability • Remarkable things are those which are worthy of

remark • A thing could be remarkable because it is novel,

interesting, unusual (surprising), extraordinary (extreme), mysterious or worthy of notice or attention

• Remarkable things give social currency because they make people who talk about them seem remarkable

• More remarkable products (latest technology, fashion etc.) get twice as much WOM as less remarkable products (banks, medicines etc.)

Leveraging game mechanics • W hy do we love games?

• People enjoy achievement

• By providing points, levels etc. games offer us tangible evidence of our progress and a sense of achievement (immediate gratification compared to real life achievements, which take a hell of a lot of time!!)

• Milestones or markers in a game motivate us to work harder to achieve these markers particularly when we are close

Why do we love games? • Games encourage social comparison • Social hierarchy and comparison is a

human tendency

• In an experiment, Harvard students were ready to make $50K less if it means

beating their classmates (Solnick & Hemenway, 1998).

• Game milestones indicate where we stand relative to others

• Doing well in a game makes us look good and gives us bragging rights (just

like any other status symbol)

Solnick, S. J., & Hemenway, D. (1998). Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 37(3), 373-383. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-2681(98)00089-4

Leveraging game mechanics • How can a brand or organisation be “gamified”?

Quantify brand consumption performance so that consumers can see where they stand and brag…. Spreading the word about your brand!!

Make people Feel like insiders

• When people know or get something not everyone else has, it makes them feel special and gives them social currency • Scarcity and exclusivity boost WOM by making

people feel like insiders • Urgency magnifies the effect of scarcity • E.g. members only sites, time bound deals,

exclusive offers etc..

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Triggers

• Research has found that there is no correlation between a product’s novelty, levels of interest or surprise and the number of times people talked about it

• Immediate vs. Ongoing WOM • Immediate WOM is sharing an information or

experience soon after it occurs • Ongoing WOM is a conversation that occurs long after

the experience

• While immediate WOM is vital to kick-start a campaign, sustaining the conversation is essential to have a meaningful impact on our habits and behaviour

Triggers

• Ideas that are more accessible are likely to be talked about more • “ Top of the mind leads to tip of tongue”

• Most casual chats are just conversational space fillers to avoid the awkwardness of silence! • Naturally, we talk about products that

are triggered more often in our mind

• Triggers are environmental stimuli that remind consumers about our product

How can brands use triggers? • Natural connection • Associate brand with the context • Budwiser; watching sports with friends

• Repeated pairings (a new habitat for the brand)

Some characteristics of effective triggers

• Strength of association (between the brand and stimulus) • More the links, weaker will be the relation

• Point of purchase • Triggers will not be effective if people forget

about it by the time they get to the point of purchase

• Context

http://gosmellthecoffee.com/archives/9570

Emotions • The level of physiological arousal or activation that

a message triggers also affects sharing • Arousal motivates us to act on the stimulus

• How about fear and disgust? • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F4t8zL6F0c

Emotions High arousal Low arousal Positive Excitement

Amusement Contentment

Negative Anger Anxiety

Sadness

Emotions

• “Whether it’s a digital product, like Google, or a physical product, like sneakers, you should make something that will move people. People don’t want to feel like they’re being told something – they want to be entertained, they want to be moved”

• Anthony Cafaro, Google designer

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Public: Social proof

• Conformity (imitating others) is a human tendency • Others’ choices and behaviours provide us with

information (about things we are not certain about) • People buy cars when their neighbours have bought

cars in cities where it is easier to see what others are driving

• Witnessing others consume reinforces our beliefs and makes us continue consuming (without realising others are doing the same thing!) • Arizona students’ drinking was reduced simply by

publicising the fact that most students had just one or two drinks typically and about four when they party

Campo et al., (2003). Are Social Norms Campaigns Really Magic Bullets? Assessing the Effects of Students' Misperceptions on Drinking Behavior. Health Communication, Volume 15, Issue 4, pages 481-497

Publicising consumption • Products/ideas that are observable are

more likely to be imitated • Visible products give ‘social currency ’ to the

owner and ‘trigger ’ us to take action

• Making the private public • “sent from my iPhone”

• Will highlighting how many other people have forwarded our message increase its virality?

Practical value

• People like to pass on practical / useful information • Sharing useful information strengthens social bonds • Give us satisfaction that we have helped someone

Practical value • Restrictions such as quantity

limits, time limit etc. further increase the attractiveness of a deal • Newsletters should be brief

and highlight few key points • The main focus should not be

on brand advertisement • Contents relevant to a narrow

audience are likely to be shared more than contents of broad interest

Stories

• People don’t think in terms of information; they think in terms of narratives or stories • Stories are more effective because • They are personal and more trustworthy • They are easily remembered

Stories; are brands going too far?

Source: https://peterlevitan.com/a-new-bottled-water-account-for-your-ad-agency-7288/

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Stories • People talk about the story, not the brand;

so, the story has to be relevant to the brand consumption!! • Brand message has to be so integral to the

story that people can’t tell the story without the message

STEPPS summary

Social currency

• Does talking about your product / idea make people look good?

• Can you find the inner remarkability, leverage game mechanics or make people feel like insiders?

Triggers • What cues make people think about your

product or idea • How can you grow your brand’s habitat and

make it come to mind more often?

Emotion • Does talking about your product trigger

emotion • How can you kindle that fire?

STEPPS summary

Public • Does your product advertise itself? • How can you make the private public? • Can you create behavioural residue that

sticks around even after people use it?

Practical value

• How can you package incredible value and useful information that others will want to disseminate?

Stories • What is your Trojan horse? Is your product

or idea embedded in a broader narrative that people want to share?

• Is that story valuable?

Tipping point

The law of the few

• Pareto (80/20) principle: roughly 80% of the work will be done by 20% of the participants

• Success of a social epidemic depends on whether these 20% of people (with rare social gifts) are involved

• Who are these few people? (e.g. How to identify social media influencers) • Connectors (social glue who spread the message) • Mavens (databanks who provide message) • Salesmen (persuaders who convince us to take

action)

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-identify- social-media-influencers-2013-5?IR=T

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Connectors (social glue who spread the message) • Six degrees of separation • Not all degrees are equal • Very small number of people are linked

to everyone else in a few steps and rest of us are linked to the world through these few

Distribution of Facebook friends

• 99.6% of Facebook users are connected by 5 degrees

• Avg. distance between users is 4.74

• https://www.facebook.com/notes /facebook-data-team/anatomy-of- facebook/10150388519243859

Connectors (social glue who spread the message)

• Why are weak connections important?

• Strong ties are likely to be in the same environment (in terms of geography, profession, social interactions etc.)

• Their information sources are likely to be same as that of you

• Weak ties (acquaintances) are more likely to know something that we are not aware of and can give access to people / things that we cannot get ourselves

• In social media, weak ties enable us to ‘reach’ wide audience

Connectors and viral campaigns

19.000 followers

Feb 10, 2011

Celebrities spread message to wide audience

Connectors and viral campaigns

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

Kevin Allocca, w w w.ted.com ;

https://w w w.ted.com /talks/kevin_allocca_w hy_videos_go_viral?language=en

Mavens • Mavens are those who collect and distribute

information (“shopping experts”)

• These are your friends who read Choice (http://www.choice.com.au)!

• Their intention is to help others by spreading the information; not to persuade others to buy

• WOM from mavens are more trustworthy (reference power)

• Reaching your buzz agents… • https://www.bzzagent.com/

• Product discussion forums will be a good place to reach your mavens

Salespersons • Persuaders who motivate us to take action • Are bloggers more influential than celebrities and

social networks? • Yes, it seems so… after, retail stores, and brand sites (before

FB).

• Bloggers as your brand ambassadors (the good and the ugly)

• Some tools to identify influencers • www.brandwatch.com/audiences/ • www.kred.com

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Alternate(??) ideas • Seth Godin

• Remarkability • Targeting to interested audience

• Kevin Allocca • Tastemakers • Communities of participation (worth looking at!) • Unexpectedness

• Getting your ideas to survive • “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath

Are certain types of campaigns more suited for some influencers?

• Will celebrities spread messages of practical value?

• Will blogs or mavens spread messages of sentimental value?

Why did these campaigns become viral?

https://vimeo.com/85526992

Why did these campaigns become viral?

https://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/episodes/fooling-the- media-in-a-few-easy-steps/9973144

Why did these campaigns become viral? • Context – power outage in the 2013

super bowl game (trigger) • Innovative (remarkable idea, social

currency)

• 16000 retweets • 6500 favourites

Only 5% of YouTube videos are responsible for half of all reach (Nelson-Field 2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AdyH_4jMHg