Episode 19 – Dr. Jonah Berger – Contagious: Why Things Catch On

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human experience is traversing the marketing troposphere and we’re speaking with viral marketing expert professor and author of The New York Times bestselling book contagious why things catch on dr. Jonah Berger my co-host dr. G’s in the studio Jono welcome to hxp thanks so much Radley so Jonah if we could briefly go into your background how did you find yourself in a position to be studying the effects of social currency and and marketing well I grew

up actually setting the hard sciences math science computer science today what we might call stem and i love that way of understanding why things happen but i always wondered about human why we do the things that we do and i really got interested in the social sciences and and started the interested in why things catch on why products become popular and why people behave the way they do and i started a PhD and started doing research

and eventually with teaching a framework in my course that i thought would make a great book to me you know there’s a lot of sort of schools out there around social media there’s a lot of thoughts and theories but there hasn’t been a lot of data the one thing that’s really fun about contagious is the first time when people really bring in data to answer these questions right i love i love the wit that you say that word of mouth is

the greatest form of advertising because i think that one of the things that i do the most is talk to other people why why do you say that why is word of mouth more important than advertising i think they’re two key reasons the course very simply is trust we trust our friends much more than we trust abs we chance our colleagues much more than we trust ed we don’t add to trying to sell us something so because of that we sort of

push back and we’re not as persuaded for the first benefit is choice the second benefit is surely target and you know the targeting benefit of word of mouth means that we only here for me to my friends and colleagues that we might be interested in they don’t tell us everything is it possible the tell us of stuff we might find most relevant hey each other dr. G here so I really enjoyed the book it super entertaining and I barely have a book

that’s as practical at entertaining one thing I wanted to kind of break down for the listeners is what is what exactly is social currency and for the real heavy hitting power brokers and this social currency or how do you become one the idea of social currency is very simple just like the car we drive or the clothes we wear things we say or the things we share States what amount for the content online effects have other people see it just like if someone

drives a minivan you might think they’re a soccer mom or someone you know wear certain clothes you might think their hipster someone talks a lot about restaurants used in their footings someone talks a lot about travel you assume they’re into that domain what we talk about is a signal of who we are and very simply social science we have the idea that Sam or something less those look good or signal a desired identity the more likely our capital something

makes us smart for special in the no different from everybody else we’re more likely to share so in the book for example I talked about a great example of a bar in New York City that’s hidden inside a hot dog restaurant you know they don’t average how they don’t even have a sign up on the street but people love talking about it when they go there because they look cool to their friends when they talk about having been to this place it’s a signal of being smart and

then the know but it’s not just them think about simple thing you know even knowing a lot about a domain you’re not necessarily knowing secret knowing just what happens in sports or you know what happens in athletics what happened in even recreational stuff I’m gonna into no more like it it turned to them let’s say we wanted to have something go viral by the end of this week we had some kind of business or some opportunity or video

outside of say a world you know we’ll start hip hop fight what would we have to do what are some of the main things we have to expound upon in order to have something go viral yeah so we just talked about one of the factors that make speed share things there are six in total so there are a lot of different dimensions but you know I would say the first thing is stop thinking it’s random or a long and to stop focusing so much on the

technology people love to jump on the bandwagon what’s the newest technology that’s going on and think more about the psychology not well I have a whole bunch of friends or followers on Facebook or Twitter but why do people share in the first place the understanding that underlying the human behavior and that’s the first thing and that’s really what contagious and the steps in it are all about so what what makes something contagious I mean it’s a million-dollar

billion-dollar question but how does something become contagious it sells yes I mentioned oh those six factors social currency is one triggers is a second emotion is the third public is afford the actual value is the fifth and stories are the sixth I put them in our contagious i put them in a framework called steps but sort of an acronym that stands for those six things and each of them is a driver of why people should so we should talked about social currency

people talk about things that make them look good emotion is another big one you know the more emotionally connected we are more we care about something the more likely we are to share but it’s actually not all emotions that drive sharing it’s really about emotions that activate us to pass something on so on the positive side for example emotions like excitement or humor activating motions worth contentment is a more deactivating motion on the negative side

anger and arousal much more activating than sadness so we feel these activating emotions when content makes us feel them when we feel I angry or even when we feel angry for an unrelated reason the Tyrells emotions can drive us to share how would you how would you define something that goes viral yes I actually don’t think that the idea of viral itself is really interesting I think there’s a lot of type around it but there’s no you know one cut off from

something goes viral not like playing file is a million views and nine hundred thousand views is not and actually even if you think about it Jesus a bad measure these measures how many times something has been she doesn’t matter how many people see it once those people actually shared it and so a lot of what you know I help companies do you think about the right metrics we talk about viral uses a lot of people come in contact that it actually talked at all

and so will I think a better measure is to think about what i call the share rate or the shares per he had about 100 people to see a piece of content do people share it that content may not even be that popular may not have millions and millions of weeds but that’s so valuable for the companies or individuals that created it if they can get that share a higher and so while viral encouraging us to focus on flashes in the pan things that are here today

and gone tomorrow so what does the fox say for example really funny when they came out a couple years ago not a few hundred million do we have never heard from them again I don’t think those guys are doing very much today and so whether you’re a brand trying to get your products your ideas to catch on well you’re just a person trying to get your personal plan to catch on at work or get your message out there you don’t need a hundred million huge are you living 10

billion which 19 views you want more people to share your ideas for that’s really what these steps are all about getting that batting average up and getting people really more likely to share whether they share with 10 people or whether they share the laundry so it seems to me that the weight business is the way the business economy is working right now is you pretty much have to showcase that you’re an expert in something or have some kind of a depth

knowledge at a particular subject but how does one go about doing that without looking like complete braggart prick in the process because I know that the intention can make a huge difference but what are some things that someone can do say in a professional capacity ensure that that doesn’t happen I think there’s a difference between bragging and sharing useful information so for example you think about what content marketing in and one brand new content

marketing it’s really sharing useful information that’s not about them I hey hey look at me follow me pay attention to me but keeping someone else something but it’s not talking about you it’s talking about the information I think the more we can give others useful information want to build expertise in a safe don’t say hey I’m an expert am great at this giving someone something that shows you’re an expert and that’s one thing I really talk a lot about in

the book that they do have showing rather than telling I think too often we think to get a message across we need to tell people hey you know I’m an expert on this well let me tell you how great I am rather than telling people how great you are why don’t you show them giving them useful information or somebody help their lives out that they want to pass on to others and along the way they’ll remember you in the process and excuse them something useful they

share it with someone else so definitely seemed was an expert than they would ever walk this is the the practical value that you mentioned in the book is that was very referring to right now definitely both the practical value and the idea of building a Trojan horse story right rather making yourself part of a message rather than just giving information I really liked your Trojan horse concept and I I did read your book and there’s can you go into that a

little bit more how does someone build a Trojan horse story yes um take for example a statistic you know many people think that most word of mouth is online but it actually turns out that only about seven percent of all word of mouth is online most would amount is offline now that’s a really surprising statistic I often hold that statistic when I give talks and I mentioned in the book that’s useful information for people working in

the word of mouth face one thing you want to make sure is well i’m sharing useful information i’m telling a story how do i make sure i come along for the ride that I’m part of that for my messages is part of that story there’s a great example I use in a book from a company called Blendtec they make these great videos or will it blend where they stick everything from an iphone the marble anything you can imagine a blender so who really imagined a marble

getting caught up in a blender and Washington getting cut to shreds it’s an amazing piece of content you can’t help but watch it and be impressed and feel those emotions but it’s not just that at the end of the day when you’re watching that video you can’t help realize that wow they make a really tough blender and so it’s not just a great story or a great piece of content it brings their attribute along for the ride and the reason I like the phrase explosion horse

story I think about a Trojan horse it’s a carrier or a metal in a chosen horse case it brought men inside the stories are the same thing they carry message your ideas with them you think about the boy who cried wolf encourages people not to lie it’s a story it’s rose you’re more story that carries an underlying message right so then how would how would a grassroots someone who doesn’t necessarily have the money to spend on advertising campaign how

would someone build a Trojan horse type story around a product that they have or how what would you suggest to someone who wants to succeed marketing their product but I think the first thing is to understand your customer base or your users you know what in particular they interested in and how can you create a story that appeals to their interest we think about building that story those higher relative emotions I talked about

that idea of social currency stories that surprise people or even make people angry or excited will encourage people to share but then make sure at the end of the day that the moral of that story has eyes are something to do with you your brand your products or the attribute care about too often companies create content particularly now with the web and social media you know everyone’s trying to be a content creator everyone wants to try to fit amazing engaging

content but the end of the day if someone watches or engages with your content but they can’t remember who it’s for it’s not going to be very useful and so I talked about the check you have valuable morality we don’t only want someone to share something you want to make sure it’s valuable for the person that creates it so how can the moral the story that you create be your brand is very trust worthy of trust is the attributes you can about will build the

story that shows how trustworthy you are it’s an engaging forward so at the end of the day that idea trust comes along for the ride so let’s get let’s get practical for a moment and kind of do a case study so to speak for listeners so Jonah take our take our podcast for instance what you just mentioned what are some things we could do to kind of maximize the chances of save light reality of what we’re kind of doing here are human experience okay well so I need

some better sense that’s sort of what a factoid would be a piece of information or a story so for example what’s a story of someone who listen to your podcast that did something amazing with that information if one of our shows really helped someone figure something out or chains or change their life in some way like for example I got an email from someone in the military who is suffering from PTSD they heard one of our episodes

the episode really helped them decide how to treat their PTSD listening to us talk about it neat and so I think that’s a good place to start I might have you know we were working together I might encourage you to dig into some of the details of that story so the more concretely make them the more we tell about the person for example who was this specific person how did they get the disorder some concrete details about their life helps us get a

sense of who that person is and and more emotionally engaged with them as a character but then I think that story is you talked about is a great examples of power of your contact right now we need to think about how to make that story engaging emotional but it sounds like the story itself is a good chosen force for the message you’re trying to get outfits podcast can change people’s lives for the better well then so it’s really thinking about you know one

what’s an engaging story but to what is it engaging stories at the end of it as a moral shows the product or idea that you’re trying to get people excited about right so it sounds like emotional triggers where you’re kind of harping on here so what’s the secret of getting people to care enough to share the content emotionally or what are some of these stratifications that you mentioned as far as these benchmarks very positive and negative triggers that you mentioned

the book can you kind of talk about that yeah and emotion and trigger to things that are different emotion is really how much we feel connected to something we can talk about emotions like anger anxiety or excitement humor inspiration inspiration for example in the story we just talked about the more inspired people are the things that others have accomplished or achieved or even how much someone is overcome something and inspiration or all as a high arousal

notion that drives people to share but triggers are a little different so triggers are about whether or not you remember to think about something are you triggered to think about it or trigger it’s them to mention that idea to someone else and I think too often you know we think about well how much does someone like us or how much does someone like our products or idea but if someone likes us but they never think about them it doesn’t matter very much

so take a great example of them video floating around recently from the company Geico and they have a great ad with a camel in it where he’s walking around the office going what day is it today what day is it he finds out a tough day gets very excited and the ABS there’s something on lines of you know how happier people save money with geico Oh happier than a camel on hump day now that ad is sort of funny it has a little bit of emotion so she doesn’t have that

much emotion so what’s interesting about it because that’s the second most share to add of last year of all acts period not just of insurance but any add it all and so you could say well if it’s not that funny and if they didn’t spend that much money advertising it why did it do so well you look at the data you dig a little deeper you see an interesting pattern there’s a spike in shares and then it goes down and then another spike

and then it goes down at another spike and then it goes down and if you look closer those spikes aren’t random there seven days apart you look even close you’ll notice there is every one day or is it closely known hump day and so that content equally emotional every day of the week right it’s emotional on Mondays motion on Tuesday most on Wednesday but Wednesday rolls around it provides already reminder or a trigger sort of thing in people’s mind to encourage them

to think about it from share that information is it something top of mind it’s much more likely be careful tom and so one thing I encourage people to think about it what can you link yourself to in the environment that’s every time people see that thing or hear that thing they think of you if I said peanut butter and for example what’s what word might you can does uh just jelly right peanut butter and jelly yeah right or if I said romance what’s what words much

rum and coke you might think about well Jenelle’s might think of coke rise rum and coke and so the idea here is you know peanut butter makes people think about Joey you have jellies not around sounds like jelly should pay peanut butter a kickback or a referral fee every time Peter goes around did it makes people think about Joey and that’s what we call a trigger and so you know when people want to be thought of more they want their ideas if you thought up

more I say well what’s your peanut butter so Jonah can we just can we get into I mean your story’s pretty interesting because you you you know you did your PhD and and then you’re kind of teaching and now you have this new york times bestseller what is something that you think you did differently than maybe other authors that put you in this sort of sphere of succeeding yeah and i think there are some some things from this book per se and then there’s some more

general stuff for the book you know we lied on the ideas from the books to market book for triggers we created some issues that are orange the book came out during cold and flu season who wanted a return before sneezing think about the book and to think about ideas being spread just like diseases are spread we came out with some orange tissue that I would give out during talk it said don’t you wish your ideas or this contagious

thankful that you know a few thousand hundred thousand copies in France 35 languages around the world show that you know we’re doing okay we have to nail this but we’ve learned something well generally though you know I think one important thing is just to find something you love doing you know I would be excited about this book and the ideas in this book even if it sold ten copies I’m just really proud of the research and really excited to be able

to share with people and so if you find something you love doing you know that old phrase do what you love and love what you do and you keep persisting at it you can’t help but be somewhat successful right so passion is definitely one of those motivating factors that’s huge i think that’s really ingenious what you did to advertise and market the book what are so just what are some obstacles you guys have seen as far as people implementing

these steps and what changes the marketplace is changing so rapidly and technology is constantly advancing what you anticipate a horizon with these advances technology and how can someone adapt accordingly yeah you know people love to say that technology is changing and it is but most word of mouth is offline most word of mouth is still face to face if the original social media its face to face word of mouth and you know it’s really easy to jump on the

bandwagon and you know whether it’s Pinterest or Instagram or all these different technologies that may come and go you know people thought 4 spreader is going to be really big and then it wasn’t and so rather than focusing on what sort of technology it’s all about you know skaters much live that behavior and how you can take advantage of it you know if you think only one thing from these ideas how you turn customers and advocates how do you turn people that

like you and get them to talk and share your ideas your products your message even your your movement so they’ve become even bigger no after involve technology though technology can help doesn’t have to be online it’s really simple about how do you build support thing by getting one person that sell just one other first about it and even if you’ve got a small business you know it’s just that you’re just starting out there coffee customers are like you

figure out why they like is a really good service you know show them that personal attention and they’ll be more likely to talk about you with others make them feel special so often I think it’s business owners they focus on ourselves if they well let me let me show you how great I am how can you let your customers look really good you know make your customers feel special make them look good to others they’ll tell everybody else because they want to get

that social currency so it’s less about technology and more about psychology yeah yeah Jonah I know your I know your time is limited man if we could just cover am awfully the love the same thing that you kind of go into in the book that would that would wrap things up well I think perfect yeah I think that’s sort of really interesting thing you know we all think we’re very different from those around all the water a little but there’s an old idea in sociology

called immokalee which basically means that people tend to be friends with other people like them and there are two key reasons for that one we tend to hang out with other people that do the same things that we do if you like movies you tend to go to the movies a lot to meet other people at luby’s you play basketball that was engulfed you tend to be more basketball players and buffers and so we tend to meet other people that have similar interests even within that

we tend to become friends with those folks among the set of folks we need there are more like us and so all together this ends up meaning that we’re friends without is like on assisted food news for word of mouth because if you’re a small business or an entrepreneur and someone like you it’s like their friends will love yourself officer very true Jonah working where can people find your work how can people get to your stuff yeah so first of all the book is

contagious why things catch on its on amazon as well as any other online retailer and major booksellers you can also find me at Jonah jail and aah burger vbr GPRS com there’s a free workbook there on the resource tab and keep people interested in applying these ideas it’s just I think the light most tab on the set of button it’ll help me download workbook to think about how sly these ideas and then last but not least if you likes it so

maybe of stuff and you want to chat with me there people can find me at j one burger on twitter very very cool Jonah thanks so much for your time and really appreciate a really intriguing work I know you’re a busy guy so we’re going to let you go this is the human experience my co-host dr. G i’m xavier we’re out of here thanks so much for listening we will see you guys next week