Contagious
16min
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16min
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Analysis and key concepts
01.
Foundation. Why do “things” take off and go viral?
02.
What makes us seem “cool” and how can we take advantage of this factor to make our products more viral – Social Currency
03.
What stimulates us to want to share a product with others? – Triggers
04.
What do we feel when we share something with others? – Emotion
05.
Why is it important for others to see people using our product? - Public
06.
So, when we find something that we think is valid, why do we decide to share it with others? – Practical Value
07.
How narrative becomes part of our need to share – Stories
08.
STEPPS – the “viral” formula
09.
Quotes
10.
Take-home message
There are lots of examples of things that “catch on”: examples of social epidemics where ideas, products and behaviours have spread like wildfire throughout the population. They begin with a small group of individuals and they spread, often from person to person, just like a virus. But why does this happen with some products and not with others? In some cases, these products that become popular are simply better than the rest. Sometimes, we are attracted by the price. Often adverts can have an influence on the popularity of a product, because we only buy something when we become aware of it. And what about ideas?
These reasons are not enough. Let’s think about a YouTube video that gets a million views, or a baby name that becomes much more widely used. To really understand how something “goes viral” we can’t just look at how it is distributed, we need to examine the characteristics that make people talk about it and share it with others.
There are six characteristics that contribute to how catchy something becomes. These can be summarised by the acronym STEPPS. These factors don’t guarantee that our product or idea will become viral phenomena, but they can contribute to its popularity. Furthermore, not everything that goes viral has each of these 6 traits, but they generally have at least one of them, depending on the type of product or idea.
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The author
Edition
Publishing house:
Simon & Schuster
Year:
2016
Pages:
256
ISBN:
978-1451686586