We’ve taken the very best parts of our original webinar with Dr. Jonah Berger, author of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Contagious: Why Things Catch On, and condensed them into 30 minutes focusing strictly on the essentials. This presentation reveals the secret science behind word-of-mouth and social transmission, and teaches you how to craft your own contagious content.
In this 30 minute on-demand webinar, you’ll learn: when and why word of mouth is more effective than advertising, how to turn your customers into a marketing channel, how to craft contagious content, and how to build buzz both online and offline.
Webinar Transcript:
hello everyone and thank you for joining
us today we’ll be presenting with
highlights of Bulldog reporters June
2017 webinar with dr. Jonah Berger
author of New York Times best-selling
book contagious why things catch on and
authors new book in invisible influence
the hidden forces to shape behavior in
this 30-minute webinar we’ll be focusing
on the essentials of the social science
behind social transmission as well as
factors contributing to virality there
will be takeaways on how to craft your
own contagious content as well this
webinar is presented by Bulldog reporter
and dr. John Berger and brought to you
by agility PR solutions so without
further ado here is dr. Jonah Berger
thanks and you know I think everyone
listening today has the same goals which
is how can we get our messages and our
clients messages out there more
effectively and it used to be that
traditional media was the only way to go
paid media was the only way to go but
we’ve realized that word-of-mouth plays
a big impact on not only how impactful
paid media is but whether our stories
get out there not across a variety of
channel the only questions how can we
get people to share our stuff how can we
get them to pass our message our article
our idea along and how can we use that
to help our own businesses as well as
the brands and companies that we
represent as we help them grow and so
that’s what I’m going to talk about will
talk about a few things we’ll talk about
how we can make our communications taste
you by understanding that science behind
why people talk and share we’ll talk
about how we can get people to pick up
and spread our messages right now would
get them to understand and read our
content as well as pass on and how we
can use word of mouth to help grow our
clients businesses as well as honestly
our own like–that’s we’ll talk about
today and so that’s the long-winded
introduction to a title slide but it’s
nicely mentioned a professor Jonah
Berger a marketing professor at the
Wharton School at the University of
Pennsylvania what I’ll do today in this
sort of 40 minutes or 30 40 minutes we
have together is give you a brief tour
my recent New York Times and Wall Street
Journal bestseller contagious like
things catch on I’ll also talk about a
little bit of some of the new research
for my recent book invisible influence
the hidden forces that shaped hater
importantly everything I’ll talk about
today will be based on rigorous academic
research all the papers are in the back
of the books they’re also up on the
research tab of Jonah Berger calm
everything here is based on science what
I won’t do though is put up a table lots
of statistics I found that is a great
way to put an audience to sleep so
instead I will tell stories because as
we’ll talk about today stories of the
currency of communication but behind
each of these stories is decade’s worth
of research to back it up more than
happy to talk about that research during
the question and answer period if
there’s a question that you don’t get in
today or you have additional question
feel free to follow up with me at j1
burger on Twitter I’m more than happy to
answer your questions there as well so
just to dive right in I want to start
with a quote and I think this quote is
obvious to most of us but in case it’s
not word of mouth generates more than
twice the sales of traditional
advertising and by traditional
advertising I don’t mean a television
spot or radio spot it’s any piece of
company generated communication anything
that comes from a company rather than a
peer and that’s often why PR is so much
more effective but it doesn’t seem like
it comes from a company or organization
and there are two key reasons that
word-of-mouth is more impactful the
first phrase simply is trust we tend to
trust our friends but we tend not to
trust ads and there was a great example
of this lesson United States at least
last football season there’s a famous
quarterback who’s in the Hall of Fame of
football and he was in this ad for these
sketchy shoes called shape ups and in
case you don’t know a bus are they be
shoes that you wear that theoretically
at least or do to some science I’m
unaware of you can wear them and get a
tone rear end
so imagine see this guy is same as
quarterback saying I love these shoes
what would you think and imagine sitting
there than what would you think right if
you saw this message and I remember
saying they’re going oh wow this thing’s
must be really bad and Joe Montana
household right there’s no way that this
famous quarterback actually would be
shoes because every time we see an ad we
know that someone is trying to convince
us we know they’re trying to change our
behavior and so we’re less likely to
listen but we’ll trust our friends and
peers because they’ll tell it to us
straight but they have like this or hey
I didn’t like it you are more like it
leave that message so that’s certainly
the value of court amounts and indeed
the value of PR more generally but the
second benefit is a little more nuanced
that’s a targeting benefit of
word-of-mouth how do we find the right
potential folks that might be interested
in the message we have to offer how do
we find the right potential individuals
that we should reach with that message
and it’s it’s tough right digitally we
can do a little bit of targeting we can
try to buy ads on our sites that might
be interested in the message or you can
try to target our PR activities to news
places where the right target market
will pick up our message but even if we
do that it’s still challenging to reach
the right audience what if we could use
people that know that audience better
than we do and that’s exactly what word
about does it goes to a social network
almost like a searchlight to find the
person or people that will find
information most most relevant a couple
years ago I got a free book in the mail
publishers often send academics books
with the hopes that we’ll assign them to
our students and they’ll sell more
copies in the process but this time they
didn’t just send me one book they sent
me two copies of the same book
so I’m sitting there in my office going
okay why the second look why two looks
and there’s a note in the back of one of
them that said hey professor Berger we
think you’ll like this book what we
think we’ll also know someone else will
like this book pass the second copy on
to them and that’s the first very simple
hack I’m going to share with you today
by turning customers into advocates can
we get them to do the work for us
because I didn’t just pass that book on
randomly right I thought about who in my
social network what other faculty member
might find this information most
relevant or most interesting I pass it
on to the person that would find it most
useful and indeed that’s exactly what
word if not those we don’t share things
with people that we wouldn’t think which
would find it interesting rightly pass
it on the person that we think would
find it most interesting or valuable if
you don’t have kids no one’s going to
tell you about a great website for baby
clothes if you don’t like spicy food no
one’s going to tell you about a great
restaurant that has really spicy curries
they’re going to pass something on to
you that they think is most interesting
or most relevant given your background
or interest they’re going to target you
with that information what that means is
that we can get our customers to do the
work for us they’ll find the people that
will find our information most
interesting or valuable in the
referred business people that come in
from existing clients or customers have
about 20% higher customer lifetime value
right they’re more interested in the
message and so when someone reads an
article right or even I look online it’s
like you they’re interested in the
message but then if they pass it on to
someone else it’s likely those folks are
also interested in the message right
they’re doing the work for us
another fun example this just in a
product context uber last holiday season
they had some PR issues so they send an
email app so many of their sub users
saying hey having a holiday party
request free rides for your guests here
I’ve noticed that nice of them request
free rides for your guests here nice and
pro-social but notice it’s not just nice
I notice notice what they’re doing they
say hey existing number user who in your
network might like uber but isn’t using
them parade they’re using them already
right they they can’t get the free ride
passes onto them right they’re kind of
your existing users our existing
customers to do the work for them
and so that’s the key takeaway 48 how
can we turn our customers or the leaders
of the articles that we help produce and
the content we produce how can we turn
them into advocates but how can we event
get them to amplify our message more
effectively we can place content in the
right places if we’re going to see our
professionals we can place a story in
the right outlets but to amplify that
story to amplify our message we have to
make sure it goes beyond the simple
people that come across it to a broader
audience how do we do that and that’s
all we’re going to talk about today how
do we get that word of mouth and usually
when we think about getting word of
mouth you think online we think about
Facebook we think about Twitter we think
about LinkedIn and think about blogs
online reviews but if you have to guess
from a hundred percent all the way down
to zero what percent of word-of-mouth
would you guess is online from all of it
to none of it what percent would you
guess is online think about it for for a
second
I think about what percent of
word-of-mouth you might guess is online
and you might say well I mean bad people
are in social media so much these days
it’s probably 60 or maybe even 70% we
think that number is quite high and
indeed there’s a lot of front page news
articles written about new technology
startups and how much money they’re
they’re raising right and so we think
it’s all about online but if we actually
look at the data the percent of
word-of-mouth that’s online
only about 7% of word-of-mouth is online
not 70% not 17% that 7% of word-of-mouth
it is online much smaller than we might
think
and some of you probably listening going
wow you know why are we investing so
much money in just social media if if
most word-of-mouth is online and indeed
I work with a number of client that say
exactly that you know why are we
investing so much money in social media
and I often say that’s a really good
question why are we investing so much
money in social media because it’s not
that social isn’t a useful tool to get
our message out there amplifier method
it certainly is but it’s not the only
useful tool for getting our message out
there that most word-of-mouth is
face-to-face person a person right
family members around the breakfast
table colleagues at work around lunch or
grabbing a beer with friends after work
most word-of-mouth its face-to-face and
more importantly by focusing so much on
the technology we forgot about something
much more important the psychology why
do people talk and share because you can
have millions of friends and followers
and social connections online but they
don’t pass on your message they don’t
spread your methods it’s not going to
matter in fact I think this cartoon
illustrates it really nicely
it said the funeral a little morose but
it said he had over 2,000 Facebook
friends I was expecting a bigger turnout
and I think a lot of us were expecting a
bigger turnout right there’s this notion
if we just accumulated friends and
followers would be successful but if
people don’t share a message it’s not
going to matter right you know people
said that the Foursquare was going to be
the next new technology than it wasn’t
so it was vine and it wasn’t snapchat
and Yik yak and all these different
software packages and technologies will
they be around in 10 years hard to say
but what is clear is that people will be
sharing so we need to understand why
people are sharing and how to get people
to share our stuff well good news it’s
not random it’s not luck and it’s not
chance there’s a science behind why
people talk and share we look at
thousands of pieces of online content
look at why certain New York Times
articles make the most email list for
example we looked at tens of thousands
of brands looking at why certain brands
get more word-of-mouth online at all and
we look at millions of purchases across
the United States and around the world
and again and again we see the same six
factors come up in contagious I put
these six factors in a framework called
steps that’s an acronym which stands
social currency triggers emotion public
practical value and stories each of
those is a principle we found across
domains it’s not about one vertical
versus the other it’s not about products
or services or ideas it’s about the
drivers of why people talk and share in
the first place and so we’ll talk about
those six today if we understand that we
can get people to share anything and we
won’t have time today to talk about all
six so I’ll probably focus on social
currency triggers and stories but I’ll
let you read about the other three in
the book and agility PR has been very
nice to give a bunch of books for folks
that are listening today so you can
certainly check it out there in the book
as well as online so one more thing
though before we get to the content or a
couple more things
the first is 91% I know many of you work
in b2c markets business to consumer but
I know that some of you may at least
once in a while think about b2b business
to business and we tend to think that
word of mouth is all about b2c it’s all
about business consumers sure consumers
share word at house but b2b
word-of-mouth doesn’t matter they’re
right in it
decisions are much more important and
costly financially into word-of-mouth
matters less b2b markets if you think
that I want you to remember this number
91% of new business leads in b2b markets
comes from guess where existing business
right it’s not about b2b or b2c it’s
about B to P it’s about understanding
and relying person or psychology behind
why people talk and share and using that
to get them to pass along a message in
b2b markets word amount certainly works
differently right it’s not just word of
mouth in general we have to make sure
the right person talks to the right
other person in the right organization
to get someone to make a decision so
it’s not that anywhere in mountain
matters it’s not amount to the right
person a social network starts to matter
a lot but why people talking share why
they spread messages across that social
network is certainly the same so less
about B to C B to P and more about B to
P so let me start by talking about
social currency oh sorry one more thing
about measurement and this is where
measurement I think plays out as well
it’s really important to think about the
right KPIs as we think about social
media as well as offline work now so
often we think it’s all about the number
of friends or followers or too often we
think even it might be
the number of impressions number of
views piece of content gets or even just
overall the number of shares but even
views and shares are not a great metric
so first of all friends and followers
very static it doesn’t tell us whether
someone is engaging with our content our
databases
it just says at one point in time they
connected at the brand that’s not not
very useful to a passive rather than
active shares and views are closer to
good metrics but we need to think about
those metrics normalized you know a
certain piece of content may show up on
the top of the newspaper for example or
the top of a website it would be
surprising if that didn’t get more
attention than something that was on the
bottom of the website but we need to
normalize for that way given an article
is viewed how many shares did it get
like not okay did people view it or not
or did people share even normalize for
the number of people that viewed it in
the grocery store for example would be
surprising that something on the end cap
sells better than coming in the middle
of the aisle it was featured more and so
what we wanted to care about is a
batting average field what I call the
contagious index given something with
you what amount of engagement did it get
what percent of viewers shared it liked
it commented on it combining those
together to give us a much better metric
and I’ve worked with a company called
Digitas to come out with some new
metrics there they’re quite helpful and
I’m happy to talk about that during the
Q&A; period as well ok enough about that
on onto the steps so to start with
social currency I want to talk about a
bar in New York City and I want you to
imagine you’re walking around New York
City one weekend your stomach is
rumbling then walking around all day you
got to get a bite to eat when you walk
across this restaurant walk by this
restaurant with a big sign out front it
says eat me written on it and what looks
like mustard the big hot dog with a sign
saying evening on it walk in a flight of
stairs into this picture here which is a
restaurant called prif dog now if you
like hot dogs you will be in heaven
Chris dog has every hot dog you can
imagine the good morning hotdog with
bacon eggs and cheese if you want to eat
a hot dog for breakfast but interesting
nonetheless
hot dogs gonna in pineapple and a
traditional New York style water dog or
just ketchup and mustard just sitting
there
you might sign your hotdog you notice
something unusual in the corner of the
screen this looks like a phone booth
like something that that
man my Clark Kent might jump into the
change into Superman but it’s for fun
walk inside and on the side wall you’ll
see what you probably haven’t seen in 15
20 and 80 and 30 years a rotary dial
phone well for fun one of those phones
who stick your finger and go around a
circle just for fun stick your finger
number three go around in a circle and
hold the receiver up to your ear well
the phone will actually ring they’ll go
ring ring and then I’m going to pick up
the other line and they’ll ask you if
you have a reservation
now the first time I heard about this I
like reservation well hold on I’m going
to phone the inside of a hot dog
restaurant what could I possibly have
reservation for but if you’re lucky and
they have enough space or friend of
yours how to make reservation the bacnet
phone this will open and you’ll be that
into a secret bar called please don’t
tell now please don’t tell is violated
under traditional laws of marketing no
Simon Street assigns has the restaurant
they’ve done everything they can to make
so difficult to find and yet every day
their full 3 p.m. phone lines open up by
3:30 all the seats are gone people at
redial again and again and again so what
do they do to cut through the clutter
what do they do to become so successful
well they made themselves a secret and
let me tell you a little secret about
secret think about the last time someone
told you something and they told you not
to tell anybody else what’s the first
thing you then did that information well
if you like most people you probably
told them up because you realize that
having access the information and Agron
else has access to makes you look smart
and makes you look in the know it gives
you what I’ll call social currency just
like the car we drive and just like the
clothes we wear the things we talk about
and the things we share affect tell
other people see us so one way to get
people to share our message is to make
them look good by too often we think
about well how do our clients look if we
get in place in a piece you know how do
they look in the article do they look
good but we don’t think enough about how
the people reading that article look as
they pass that information the better
someone makes them somebody makes them
look the more likely W to share it so
let’s spend a couple minutes on on this
idea I want introduce you to a friend of
mine her name is Carla and this is a
picture of her call and I want to see
how much you can guess about her just
based on this photo so you had to guess
for example how old might you guess that
carla is based
on this image you might say she’s
probably I don’t know 35 or 45 bite
something something along those lines
okay mostly I say 35 45 how do you say
she has kids most you accommodate yes do
they play sports most you probably say
yes and what sports they play most you
probably say I don’t soccer I we don’t
know her yet we made these entrances and
why do we all make the same instances
because choices communicate information
by car we drive also the clothes we wear
what we do signal something about us if
someone wears a tie versus not it says
something about who they are as a person
well guess what the same with what
people talk about and share but people
share is a signal of identity people
share a news article about finance for
example it shows they know a lot about
that they share an article about a new
restaurant it showed their foodie what
we share is a signal of identity if you
look online for example most posts are
positive you know hey look at me on
vacation I met a celebrity I got a new
car right most posts are positive nobody
post hey look at me I’m at the office
working on an Excel spreadsheet that
check out column C right most of what we
post reflects on us possibly you could
share it we’re at the office we’re going
to so sketchy but no one does because it
wouldn’t make us look very good we
construct and refine what to say to
signal desire again great that’s true
right that’s clear so how do we take
advantage of that and so very clearly we
need to get people sharing our messages
to be something that makes them look
good how by sharing our stuff can we
make them look like inside make them
look smart special and in the know like
they’re not like everybody else wait
please don’t tell that a great job is
all hidden inside a hot dog restaurant
right it makes you look really good
to know about that so of course you’re
going to write down the name of the bar
and share it to someone else but there
are lots of other examples of this you
know a couple years ago Beyonce came out
with a new album we’re having doing
advertising she just posted it online
because she knew people want to be the
first person in their group of friends
to share it but we all want to be the
first person knows something that that
other folks don’t did some work with
LinkedIn recently and they wanted to get
people to not just use the site trains
actually but to come back again and
again
so we built something
we sent out emails to many of the users
at least the influential ones saying hey
you’re really influential profile one of
the most influential profiles on the
site top 5% or top 10% of all profiles
now people got that email felt really
good but they didn’t just feel good i
tens of thousands of not hundreds of
thousand four did that email on to their
friends because I wanted to say to
everyone else hey look at me I’m
influential on LinkedIn but notice what
happens they’re talking about how
influential they are but LinkedIn gets
to come along for the ride if we give
people way to talk about themselves
they’re going to pass it on and the to
look good to others that will be part of
that conversation okay next I want to
talk about to meet slightly different
actually quite different and that is
triggers and to talk about triggers I
want to use an example that some of you
may be familiar with others should
probably not and that is GEICO’s looks
like these are out of order and GEICO’s
a message for hump day and so as men you
may be aware at least in certain offices
people call Wednesday hump it why
because Wednesday Monday’s to be an
early Wednesday is that as in when is
the middle it’s the hump you have to get
over to get to Friday so the insurance
company Geico builds a piece of content
based on this there’s annoying camel
walking through an office going with
data that day is it ever ignore Simmons
very annoying camel now finally comes
across this woman and she goes at hump
day and the camel goes whoo-whoo and the
ad goes how happier people save money
with Geico happier than a camel on hump
day
now this video is funny it’s not that
funny it’s funnier than I did it yet
it’s not that funny but this is the
second shared video a second most shared
video a couple years ago not a car ad
not a beer ad but an insurance why did
so many people share that message on the
data guy dug a little deeper this is
what the share data looked like for this
video over time there’s a spike in
shares and it goes down then another
spike then it goes down another spike
then it goes down if you look closer the
spikes on trend there are seven days
apart and weird even close you’ll notice
that there every Wednesday whether it’s
clinically known hump day this piece of
content is equally good or bad but
Wednesday rolls around it provides a
ready reminder what’s a college would
call a trigger to make people think
about it and talk about it and share so
there’s something tap a line it’s much
more likely typical tum way too often we
think do people like our message when
you test the message we make sure that
people like it but people not sick about
it they’re not going to be able to share
it is the same thing
purchase even even more generally there
may be a restaurant wherever you live
but if you’re not thinking about it when
you’re going out to eat you’ll never go
there
80% of purchase is consideration and so
it’s really important not to think about
whether people like something but are
they thinking about it and some study
showed was really nicely a couple years
ago there was and they change the music
that played in the grocery stores
imagine you’re walking through a grocery
store and some days they play French
music and some days they play German
music and what are they fine well in
days they played French music sales of
French wine left went up days they
played German music stills a German wine
and an beer went up right now these
didn’t change what wine people like they
still like whatever wine they they like
and all I did was remind them that that
wine existed half a mind well I give you
tip of tongue and more like a big
purchase right and so the question is
how can we make sure we’re triggered
more often well that’s we’ll talk about
next table online means tip of tongue
and so this is a little more data this
is word of mouth with for the brand
Cheerios by time of day and what do you
notice about when people talk about the
breakfast area well not surprisingly not
rocket times they talk about it in the
morning I people talk about Cheerios
when they eat Cheerios but the challenge
is the rest of the day those that people
don’t continue to talk about the point
here is that you might hear something
unlike it but it’s not going to stay top
of mind most things go down top of mind
very quickly and so because other things
replace it and so unless we advertise do
we have another message it’s hard to
remind people that we exist so how can
we make sure we come to mind more often
right even if people aren’t using us as
frequently well if I said peanut butter
and what word might come to mind well
you might think of jelly or if I said
rum and you might think of coke notice
that peanut butter is like a little
advertisement for jelly someone’s like
jelly should pay peanut butter at the
kickback referral fee whenever peanut
butter is around because if peanut
butter is around jelly doesn’t have to
remind you it exists peanut butter does
all the work for jelly right that’s why
we now slogan weekend’s are made from
nickel oh right what they did is they
wanted people think about the beer on
the weekend rolls around a Corona has
done the same thing with the beach I
challenge you to go on a beach vacation
and never think about Corona pretty much
impossible right I just lying there in
the sand got your sunscreen on you get
thirsty you
might not like beer you might not like
Corona but I guarantee you’ll think
about and what is it always having it
when we think of it well it usually has
a line is that random is that luck at
that chance no Beach is called as
trigger very simply the beach is cologne
as peanut butter and so I’d ask you to
think about here is okay what’s your
peanut bar what’s the thing in the
environment that will remind people of
your message even when you’re not around
because you can advertise a lot or make
sure your story get placed in a lot of
stories to remind them that your news
articles remind them that your company
or your brand exists but the challenge
is if you haven’t been around recently
they’re not gonna remember it or you can
link your self to a peanut butter and
every time they see that peanut butter
they’ll think of your jelly and so it’s
really key is sort of four key questions
as we think about triggers who do we
want to be triggered when do we want
them to think about what is around that
time and how could link to that thing
it’s not enough to come to mind ever we
have to come to mind at the right time
I’m a reasonable grocery bag that when
is really important you need to think
about it before you leave the house to
make sure I get brought along otherwise
it’s not going to happen and so we need
to think about well who we want to be
triggered who is the right audience when
do we want them to think about us what
is around that time and calculate a link
to that thing but if we want the brand’s
we represent to these it’s a radio
station that they want to be listened to
in the car well how can we use PR and
other vehicles to make sure they’re
linked to for example the steering with
top among more likely tip of tongue or I
can be talked about and more likely for
action to be taken place okay I’m going
to cut triggers a little bit short there
and I’m not going have time to talk
about emotion unfortunately or public
given time I won’t talk about practical
value either except to say that 25
percent off and $5 off $20 they might
seem like the same amount but they’re
not and the same with $2,000 your
clients open to $2,000 they think about
$500 off versus 25 percent off but may
economically seem the same but they’re
not one is better the consumer than the
other
sometimes percentages are off better
sometimes numerical information is
better
depends on something I call the rule 100
let’s read about it and practical value
chapter we want to wrap up by talking
about stories because this is an
important one
I’ve been telling stories all along but
I want to talk about a particular type
of story so imagine you’re at a party
and someone you don’t know walks up to
you and says did you know that Maui Jim
has great customer service what would
you do if someone you don’t know walked
up to it said Maui jim has great
customer service the sunglass company
Maui Jim that’s great customer service
you probably say oh wow that’s really
interesting hey unless my drink right
over there I’ll be back in just a second
and then that person would never see you
again right because no one wants to be
friends with someone that sounds like a
walking advertisement as much as we like
the brands we represent people don’t
want to seem like they’re a walking
advertisement so they need psychological
cover to be able to share messages like
this and that’s exactly what stories are
friend of mine recently told me a great
story about Maui Jim he ordered a pair
of sunglasses and his dog torn to shreds
you love the sunglass
wasn’t for months but his dog got to
hold them rip them to pieces and there
were so many pieces he couldn’t even
tell which brand or which SKU number
they were to order a new pair so he put
him in a box send it back to Maui Jim
said hey I’m happy to pay for them just
let me know how much I owe you and which
paired by well a couple weeks later he
got a box in the mail with a free pair
of sunglasses and a dog bone and what I
love about that story is in just a
couple seconds everything on that left
side of the screen came across right
it’s hidden inside that story because
good stories aren’t just stories they’re
vessels were carriers of information so
what I’ll call ocean horse stories we
all know the story of the Trojan Trojan
horse the Greeks versus Trojans no one
can win with it bill the big when the
horse and they hide a man inside well
good stories are like that there’s an
engaging story outside but along the
ride comes a kernel a brand or key
action right and that’s a good part PR
does right there’s a story or narrative
but the brand the organization the
message the industry comes along as part
of that never heard the story of the boy
who cried wolf
yeah it’s a great story but it also
tells the message that lying is a bad
idea because of six key step statistics
or word amount talk about social
currency how can we make people feel
smart special in the know like they’re
not like everybody else want them to
share a story has it make them feel
smart or in the no trigger top of mind
type of town what’s our peanut butter
what’s the thing in the environment that
will remind people of us in or not
around
emotion is all that will be care to
share but certain motions increase
sharing and certain decree sharing and
it’s not just a positive increase and
negative decrease it’s actually more
complicated than that
public all about easy to see easy to
imitate practical values about useful
information and last but not least is
stories but when kids people put their
kids to bed at night nobody tells
bedtime facts stories of the currency of
communication as we talked about certain
stories are more effective than others I
hope you enjoyed panda cheese I hope you
found it funny but notice that it’s not
just funny because I challenge you to
tell that piece of content or share it
with someone else and not mention a word
panda it’s not just funny it’s a Trojan
horse for the idea that they want to put
out there it’s a Trojan horse for their
brand name and so we think about trying
to get our messages or clients messages
out there think about again how can use
stories to do that how can we use
vessels for carriers of information and
just one one last slide from me and you
know lots of information here hope you
find it useful two key next steps first
is find your current I work with lots of
companies in organization and too often
they say no we want more work now that’s
great but before that what do you want
people to talk about and share you could
diagram that conversation from one
person to another what would that person
pass-along
figure out what that kernel those
kernels are and then building on that I
then apply the steps think about your
social currency find your triggers and
in case it’s useful there’s a free
workbook on my website just Jonah Berger
calm flash resources or application
guide you can download it you can work
on it with your team’s it will walk you
through sort of step by step each of the
six steps and how to apply it for
whatever client you happen to be working
with because again it’s not random it’s
not luck it’s not chance there’s a
science behind why people talk and why
people share you’ll understand that
science we can craft contagious content
we can build more effective messages and
get our products and ideas to catch on
so thank you very much hope you enjoyed
the talk hope you found it useful and
hope you enjoy applying ideas thank you
thank you for that wonderful
presentation and insight professor
Berger
we appreciate you here sharing those
amazing tips with us for creating our
own viral content I think there were a
lot of great takeaways from that for
anyone interested in reading dr. burgers
contagious why things catch on you will
be able to sign up for your own free
copy of this book immediately following
this webinar so please take advantage of
that offer and lastly for other helpful
resources for PR professionals and of
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rest of the day