VIRAL MARKETING AND HOW TO CRAFT CONTAGIOUS

CONTENT (University of Pennsylvania)

Why do some ideas stick and others don’t?

● Idea of natural selection (Certain animals fit better with their
environment and are more likely to succeed and have kids, and those
genes are passed on)
○ Variation
■ Ex: Certain stories have more emotion versus less emotion
○ Selection
■ Based on how ideas fit with our memory, with the way
we’re designed
■ As a result, those ideas stay in our memory and are more
likely to be transmitted later on
■ Everything is selected on by the environment to determine
whether or not they succeed

SUCCESs (Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional Stories)

● Principles for making ideas stick

Simple
● Less is more
● Tell people ten things, they’re not going to remember any of them
○ They are focusing their attention on all ten of them and one-tenth
of their attention gets to each of those things
● Tell people one thing and one thing only, and they’ll remember
because they focused all their attention on that one particular thing
● Analogies are a very useful tool in thinking about what we should focus
on or how we can communicate that one particular thing
○ While they don’t tell us everything about a product or idea, they
get us to 90% of that idea pretty quickly
○ They give us some good sense of what’s there by quickly
comparing it to something we all know
○ Take something everybody knows and relate new idea that they
don’t understand to that thing that they all know
● Find the core
○ We think we need to tell people everything to make sure they get
the idea
 ○ If we tell them everything, they remember nothing
○ We have to think about that one, maybe two things, that are
most important for them to remember from a message
○ If the listener walked away with just one thing, what would it be?
What is the core idea that we want to make sure they remember?
○ Simple leaves people wanting more
■ Opens up a curiosity gap like an appetizer that pulls people
in, rather than pushing them away

Unexpected
● One way to be unexpected is to violate expectations by breaking a
pattern
○ Set up the pattern first, then break it
○ Examples:
■ US Department of Transportation Ad for wearing your
seatbelt
● Initially appeared to be a normal minivan ad, until the
car being advertised was involved in a car accident
■ DoubleTree hotel
● What makes them different is that that, when you
check in, they have freshly baked chocolate chip
cookies
● Ideas that break patterns get our attention
● Being unexpected isn’t always about being crazy
○ To make something sticky in people’s memory, we need to hold
their attention by opening up a curiosity gap
■ A curiosity gap is a mystery that makes people want to
know the answer, encourages them to lean forward and
find out more; makes them want to watch the rest of the
message, watch the rest of the ad to figure out what
happens next
■ Really good marketing and really good messaging pulls
people in rather than pushing them away
■ We must be careful about repetition when we do curiosity
gaps because it can dull the surprise

Concrete
● Show, don’t tell
● Use concrete details to help people remember the key points
 ○ Create mental images in people’s minds
○ Business language tends not to be very concrete
● Key question when applying this idea of concreteness:
○ Can you see it/visualize it?

Credible
● Will people believe what you have to say?
● Our default tendency when trying to make people believe us is to use
statistics
○ Numbers can be convincing, but they are not very memorable
○ To make sure people remember what you say when you leave the
room, make sure you’re getting credibility beyond just the
statistics you are using
○ How can we put statistics in context to make them more
impactful? How can we make sure your ideas will stay behind
even after you’ve left the room?
● Testable credentials
○ Making people convince themselves

Emotional
● How do we get people to care?
● When thinking about building emotion, we need to think about how to
be concrete rather than abstract
● The more the idea pulls us in and plays at our heartstrings, the more
likely we are to care and remember what they had to say
● When applying the idea of emotion, think first about which emotion
you want to get people to feel
○ 3 whys tool

The Power of Social Influence

● Other people’s decisions affect our decisions all the time
● Conformity happens for two key reasons:
○ Information
■ We look to others to figure out what the right thing is to do
in a given situation
■ Shortcut to judgement
● It saves us time and effort to look to others in what
they have done previously
 ● This inference is much stronger when people have
less time or motivation
■ Informational social influence
● Occurs when you rely on others to determine your
course of action
○ Normative influence
■ We don’t just look for information, we care about fitting in
■ When do people conform and when are they less likely to
conform?
● Factors:
○ Number of others
■ The more people are saying the same
thing, the harder it is to go your own way
○ Consistency of others
■ On the wisdom of crowds:
● There is a notion that a crowd is wiser than any
individual might be alone; but the crowd is only wise
if each person shares his/her opinion, if each
individual contributes the unique information they
have
■ When groups get together to make decisions, we often see
something called group think
● A bunch of people make a decision that’s even worse
than what they might have made individually
because they end up glomming on
■ We want to make sure that all the diverse viewpoints are
heard, that people don’t just go along with the crowd
● Example: make opinions or voting private
○ Doing this first will encourage people to stick
with their opinion, solicit diverse views, and
make sure we get to a better outcome as a
result
● Using social influence to increase success
○ If we want people not to do something, don’t tell them that other
people are doing something
■ The more we tell people that other people are doing
something, even if we don’t want them to do it, the more
likely they’ll be to do it
 ○ When we want to convince people to do something, we want to
point out how many people are doing it
○ Social influence does 2 things:
■ Increases inequality
● Makes popular things even more popular and
unpopular things even less popular
■ Makes success unpredictable

Word of Mouth
● Data shows that word of mouth generates more than twice the sales of
traditional advertising
○ Reasons:
■ Trust
● We don’t trust ads on TV because we aren’t
necessarily sure that they are honest
● We know that someone is trying to convince us,
trying to change our mind, so we push back and
react against the message
■ Targeting
● By turning customers into advocates, we can get
them to do the work for us
● Note: only 7% of word of mouth is online
● Why invest so much on social media if only 7% of
word of mouth is online?
○ It’s not that digital and social aren’t useful
channels, but they’re not the only way that
people talk about and share information
○ We spend most of the day talking face-to-face
with others (much more time than we spend
online)
○ By focusing on technology, we forget about
something much more important: psychology
■ Why do people talk and share in the first
place? What makes them share one
message rather than another?
■ STEPPS framework: 6 key factors/steps
that drive people to share information
Social Currency
 ● The things we say and the things we share affect how other people see
us
○ What we share is a signal of who we are
● People pass things on because it makes them look good
● Having access to something that not everyone else has makes you feel
smart, in the know
● Examples:
○ Secret bar inside Hotdog restaurant
○ Coca Cola bottles with names
● How can we make customers, our clients or the people want to talk
about us feel like insiders?
● Inner remarkability

Triggers
● If something is top-of-mind, it’s more likely going to be tip-of-tongue
● We often think marketing is about “do people like the product?” and
the more people like it, the more likely they will buy it; but it’s not just
whether we like something we buy, it’s whether we’re thinking about it
or not
● If you’re not triggered to think about it, you’re not going to take action
● Ex:
○ Views/Shares for Rebecca Black’s Friday always went up on Friday
○ On days that a grocery store played French music on their PA
system, sales for French wine went up; on the days they played
German music, sales for German wine and beer went up
■ It wasn’t that the music changed what people like; it just
reminded them to purchase it
● People talk about a product when they’ve just used it
● Outside of when people use a product/service, if you want to get people
talking about your stuff, how can you trigger them in other ways
beyond use?
● What is the thing in the environment that will remind people of you
even when you’re not around?
○ Ex:
■ Michelob slogan: “Weekends are made for Michelob”
■ Corona beer is associated with the beach
■ Peanut butter & jelly
■ Kit Kat: Have a coffee break, have a Kit Kat
● Coffee is a drink that people have frequently
 ● How can you make your consumers triggered near the point of action?

Emotion
● The more we care, the more likely we are to share
● Ex: Google search ad
● Emotions differ on one other dimension beyond just whether they are
positive or negative: how activating or physiologically arousing they are
○ Some emotions like anger and anxiety are activating
■ When we are angry, we want to yell at something, throw
something, take action
○ Other emotions like sadness are deactivating
■ When we are sad, we want to curl up into a ball and do
nothing
○ All high arousal or activating emotions encourage people to
share, while low arousal or deactivating emotions discourage
sharing
● It’s not enough just to make people feel good
○ Too many companies make their customers feel content, not
activated, surprised, inspired, or excited
● How can we excite our customers? How can we surprise and delight
them and drive them into action?
● It’s not enough just to make content that has functional information in
it
○ We have to find that emotional core and use these high arousal
emotions to get people to share
● Lots of emotions will stick, but only certain emotions will get people to
spread your message

Public
● If something is built to show, it’s built to grow
● The easier it is to see, the easier it is to imitate
● Science of conformity
● Social proof
○ When people don’t know what to do, they look to others to help
them figure it out
○ We look to others for information about what we should do
ourselves
● If we want our ideas to catch on, we must make the unobservable
things more observable
 ● Ex:
○ McDonald’s used to tout how many billions they have served on
their signs
○ Apple put their logo on top of the macbooks so that others can
see it
○ Apple made their headphones white to differentiate those using
their $400 digital music players from users of portable CD players

Practical Value
● People don’t just share things that make them look good, they share
things that help others and make others better off
● Content marketing
○ Rather than talking about themselves, they share useful content
to their list that people want to share with others

Stories
● The more something is like an ad, the less likely the people are to share
it
● We have to give people an excuse, a psychological cover, to get them to
share our message – stories are one way to do exactly that
● Whether it’s a brand, whether it’s an attribute or a moral, it’s part of the
story; you can’t forget it while you’re listening to that story
● Stories are the currency of the conversation – the way we communicate
● If you want to get your idea to travel, think about how you can build a
story that carries it as part and parcel of the message

How Social Networks Spread Information and Influence

● Social networks have been around for much longer than just the
internet
○ Friendship networks
○ Phone networks
○ Networks of people who have worked together
● Not everyone is just one hop away in social networks
○ Sometimes it takes multiple degrees of separation to connect
people into our networks
● People tend to be grouped with similar others
● What is a social network?
○ Composed of 2 things: nodes and connections
■ Nodes (people)
 ■ Connections (sets of lines or edges joining those different
nodes, ex: friendship)
● If people are connected, things that are more transmissible, more
contagious, will spread further beyond the set of social ties
● Certain network structures might be more likely to spread information
than others

How networks shape the spread of information

● Network effects
○ A product or service is more valuable the more people are using it
○ Can slow diffusion at the beginning, but later on they can actually
speed it up because once people are doing something, it’ll catch
on even faster
● Waterfall strategy
○ Concentrating all your marketing efforts in one place, or one
region
○ Could be good if people need multiple doses of influence before
they adapt something
○ Good for products that are complex contagions (Ex: movie – you
go see it if a few people have checked it out/recommended it,
new open heart procedure – you would do much research first
before trying)
■ Complex things tend to be more costly, whether in terms
of time, effort, or energy
■ The more money you have to spend doing something, the
more you want to hear about it a few times before doing it
● Sprinkler strategy
○ Spreading out resources to different areas
○ Could get information to catch on faster in different networks
○ Good for products that are simple contagions (Ex: online
newspaper – you don’t need to hear about if from 5-6 people
before checking it out)

Social ties and active sharing

● Information doesn't flow like water through an open channel between a
social network; it requires active sharing
● Social ties are like drawbridges for sharing information that can be
open or closed, depending on whether someone wants to pass
something on
● 2 different kinds of social ties: strong and weak
○ Strong ties are people you talk to often, you’ve known for a long
period of time
○ Weak ties tend to be more casual relationships – people you talk
to infrequently, acquaintances