Why do people share?
To get down to the root cause of all virality, we need to answer the question: Why do people share?
We at Momentus Media have been responsible for over 70 million Facebook app installs during 2009 and 2010 and have worked with organizations like PETA, Jerry Brown for Governor, and We Day to build their viral marketing campaigns. From analyzing successful apps and campaigns, we have placed the desire to share into three buckets.
#1 Trait Signaling
#2 Emotional Venting
#3 Conversation Starters
Trait Signaling
Apps and content that say something specific about the quality of the sharer’s genes are MUCH more likely to be shared. The perfect example is the Myers-Briggs personality test. It places individuals into personality definitions that say meaningful things about the person’s personality.
People also signal traits by attaching themselves to meaningful brands (this is nothing new, we’ve been wearing brands on our bodies for millennia). In the Facebook context, this can mean joining a progressive group like I bet we can find 1,000,000 People who Support Same Sex Marriage to signal high openness or “liking” a conservative page like Being Conservative to signal low openness.
To read more about trait signaling, I highly recommend the book Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior by Geoffrey Miller.
Examples:
How sexy is my name? Facebook App (signals sexiness)
How many of me? Facebook App (signals uniqueness)
Emotional Venting
In our search for the reasons we share, the most difficult to pin down was the seemingly instinctual need to share something funny or delightful. During the high emotional state of laughing following the video, The Sneezing Baby Panda, most are overcome with an instant desire to share with friends. We call this emotional venting, the almost uncontrollable need to share content our friends will like.
It is likely we share during these moments because we realize we can offer a positive experience to our friends for basically no cost. It is like a free gift of funny to our friends.
Emotional venting doesn’t only apply to funny. We can have strong emotions like pride and solidarity. For example, there are many viral videos on Youtube about being proud to be an American or supporting our troops.
Examples:
I’m proud to be an American – American Soldier Tribute
Conversation Starters
Social Networks are all about conversations right? But sometimes conversations are hard or awkward to start (hence the invention of pickup lines). Social network posts are a good way of starting open ended conversations eg. pictures of my crazy party last night.
Conversation starters can also be more explicit eg. Facebook Questions or Farmville “be my neighbor” requests. In these cases, the sharer has something clear to gain from their post. They are extracting value from their social network.
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The goal of this analysis was to develop a framework that app developers and social marketers can use when deciding what social integration points to include in their applications and when choosing content for viral marketing campaigns. We’d love to hear other viewpoints. Do you know other reason why people share?
Discover more about virality in this free webinar: The Secrets of Virality
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