How do you create something so contagious that people can’t stop talking about it? A little-known appliance company did just that with a video of its president grinding up Justin Bieber CDs in a blender. Every advisor hopes to achieve that same contagion with social-media marketing: a presence that “goes viral” and attracts scores of retail investors.
The rewards of a successful strategy are immense, but few will achieve it. Jonah Berger’s book, Contagious: Why Things Catch On, provides a formal framework for how to succeed using social media.
About those ill-fated Justin Bieber CDs: George Wright, the marketing director for Blendtec, a small household kitchen blender manufacturer, used his $50 budget to purchase marbles, golf balls, a rake and a white lab coat. Tom Dickson, Blendtec’s president, wore the lab coat while grinding up all of the other items in a blender. The video was uploaded to YouTube, went viral and led to a series of low-budget marketing videos in which Dickson blended and grinded everything from iPhones to Halloween skeletons to those Bieber CDs.
Those videos have been viewed hundreds of millions of times on YouTube and increased Blendtec’s blender sales by 700%.
Don’t assume that the financial services industry is too staid to have its share of viral breakthroughs. The E-Trade baby commercials have achieved iconic status in Super Bowl history. Berger’s book provides a six-principle framework that you can use to create your own contagious messages.
Berger is an assistant marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, where he teaches a course called Contagious: How Products, Ideas, and Behaviors Catch On. He is an authority on the psychology of sharing, the science of social transmission and how one person’s behavior influences another’s. He was strongly influenced by Malcom Gladwell’s 2002 book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Chip and Dan Heath’s 2007 book, Made To Stick.
Berger discovered there was little academic research on this topic. He has spent the past decade devoting his undergraduate and PhD research toward several questions: Why do people talk about and share some things rather than others? Why does content go viral on the internet? Why do some products brands and ideas get more word of mouth? How does social influence work?
In contrast to Gladwell, who believes that contagious ideas are driven by a handful of mavens, connectors and salesmen, Berger argues that the message is more important than the messenger. “Contagious content is like that – so inherently viral that it spreads regardless of who is doing the talking,” Berger writes.
This book breaks down in detail why certain messages are successful . Berger provides a set of tools to understand how to make products and ideas catch on. He instructs how social influence drives these products, ideas and behaviors toward success. Berger combines his academic research and classroom material in an accessible context to help people understand and explain how stories, news, information, products, ideas, messages and videos become contagious.
His framework is useful to large corporations trying to sell millions of products and to advisors who do not have deep advertising budgets. The issue for advisors is not how to get a million views but how to get a thousand – or perhaps a few hundred – prospective clients. These efforts, too, benefit from knowing the science behind how and why people talk.
By applying some or all of the six-principle STEPPS found in all contagious content, anyone has a greater chance of success, greater regardless of the budget applied. These principles include:
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S ocial Currency: The things we talk about and share effect how people see us. Talk about things that make you look good rather than bad.
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T riggers: Things on the tip of our tongue are more likely to be talked about. The more often people think about a product or idea, the more it will be talked about.
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E motions: When we care about something, we will share it. Ideas that pull on our heartstrings and arouse activating emotions such as excitement, awe or anger are more likely to be shared.
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P ublic: We tend to look to others for information. Making things more observable makes them easier to imitate, which makes them more likely to become popular. Make your products and ideas more public.
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P ractical Value: People like to help others. If you can show how a product or idea will save time, improve health or save money, they’ll spread the word.
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S tories: Think about the story you are telling, the narrative. Build a story that carries your idea but does not seem to be a direct sell. Embed your products and ideas in stories that people want to tell.
Berger includes entertaining research and anecdotes supporting each principle. He says his principles are “less like a recipe and more like tasty salad toppings. Cobb salads, for example, often come with chicken, tomato, bacon, egg, avocado, and cheese. But a salad with just cheese and bacon is still delicious. The principles are relatively independent, so you can pick and choose whichever ones you want to apply.”
The Blendtec example illustrates how the STEPPS work to create a viral marketing effort. “George Wright had almost no marketing budget,” Berger writes. “He needed a way to generate buzz about a product most people wouldn’t ordinarily talk about: a blender. By thinking about what made his product compelling and wrapping that idea in a broader narrative, he was able to generate hundreds of millions of views and boost sales. The Will It Blend? clips are amazing (Emotion) and remarkable (Social Currency). But by making the product’s benefits (Practical Value) integral to a broader narrative (Stories), the videos provided a perfect Trojan horse to get people talking about an everyday household appliance and make Blendtec catch on.”
The book is a light and entertaining read. The examples are engaging: popular insider restaurants in NYC, Philadelphia eateries serving $100 cheesesteaks, the combination of Kit Kats with coffee and the slogan that weekends were made for Michelob.
Moreover, there is merit in Berger’s underlying idea: Regardless of how we communicate, online or offline, or what media we use, from face-to-face to social media, there are specific ways that we can create and market our content for a greater chance of better exposure. Applying as many of the six STEPPS to our products, messages and ideas as possible will give them a better chance of success.
While Berger’s research has entertainment value, I am less certain about whether it is “cutting edge science about how word of mouth and social influence work.” His ideas are born out of academia on a very new topic, rather than out of his own experiences and a depth of historical data. I have no doubt that in the next decade there will develop a far greater depth and breadth of academic research on the science of social media. I look forward to seeing how Berger’s research and career evolve in this community.
Berger’s ideas are not industry specific. For financial advisors, the six STEPPScould be used to craft communication to both current and prospective clients, particularly with respect to social media. Whether or not your goal is for your blog posts or videos to “go viral,” they could still meet some of Berger’s criteria by telling a story, stirring up emotion and offering practical value.
Justin Kermond is the vice president of business development for Advisor Perspectives.
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