‘Whether you’re in marketing, politics, engineering, public health, you need to understand how to make your products and ideas catch on’. Here are six key principles from the book ‘Contagious’ by Jonah Berger.

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I recently came across an excellent book by Jonah Berger with the title ‘Contagious’. The subtitle of the book is ‘How to build word of mouth in the digital age’.

Even at the title the book has me hooked. I’m a communication fantatic. It fascinates me. So anything that claims to help me think about communicating more effectively has my attention.

But as any student of communication knows, the art isn’t in creating more noise or transferring more information per se, we live in a content saturated world. The beauty in communication comes from the ability it has to effect change.

As a Christian and as someone who has been preaching in various forums for 20 years, life change and transformation ultimately happens by the Holy Spirit and God uses his truth communicated through personality to bring that change. But if you’re a business leader, or social media manager of a company, or you’re seeking to connect your customers with your product, you are effectively looking to instill change. As you will know howefver, it’s easier said than done; another reason to turn your heart to the Lord in prayer, preachers, marketers, business leaders alike.

Berger’s research helps us understand a bit more about the process of communication. The mechanics behind why some products and ideas or behaviours catch on, and others don’t. At the beginning of the book, he refers to various examples of ideas, or trends, or products that have caught on. I wonder if you can think of any recent ideas that you have been aware of that fit under that category?

Berger describes these as ‘social epidemics’ which he says are ‘instances where products, ideas, behaviours diffuse through a population’. However, he says that ‘few products become popular, most restaurants bomb, most businesses go under, most social movements fail to gain traction’.

Already at the front end of the book he has expertly set the scene to answer the question in our minds, namely ‘Why do some things fly while others don’t’? Are there some secret ingredients to starting a social epidemic? Berger suggests that he has the answer.

‘Quality, pricing and advertising’, only go part of the way to explain these social epidemics, says Berger, and to understand more we need to dig a little into the concept of ‘social transmission’, the reason why some things are shared more than others.

For Berger, this has been his area of pursuit and research. He points to books like Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell that illustrated things that did ‘catch on’, but his main critique of Gladwell is that he stopped short of telling us why they caught on. This was the key area of Berger’s research that led him to ask questions like ‘why certain videos go viral, why some products get more word of mouth traction than others, why certain baby names catch on or die out or why certain political messages spread.’

Berger’s research led him to teach a course with the same name as his book at a University in Pensylvania with the simple premise: ‘whether you’re in marketing, politics, engineering, public health, you need to understand how to make your products and ideas catch on’.

The book gives us a front row seat in Berger’s lecture theatre as he shares six principles that will make any content ‘contagious’, a term he defines as ‘more likely to spread, to diffuse from person to person via word of mouth and social influence’. This will know doubt be something of interest to you in whatever sphere or context you find yourself in.

These then are the six ingredients:

1.Social currency

Berger suggests that contagiousness correlates with social currency which is to say if ‘you can make people feel like insiders’, if it conveys some social benefit to the person to communicate something about the product or idea or behaviour, then you have developed some social currency or value.

In your own context, what do you have, or what idea are you working with or what event or product creates social currency for people? Often, it’s just a case of working out what is unique about what you offer and then talking about that.

2.Triggers

The second step towards enabling something to become contagious is the idea of ‘triggers’. In his research, Berger found that there were triggers that prompted people to draw a link back, which is why he said it’s important to ‘design products and ideas that are frequently triggered by the environment and create new triggers by linking our products and ideas to prevalent cues in the environment’.

There may be particular things that you can draw a link with that trigger a connection with your product or idea. Often when I was a vicar in London I would try and draw links with everyday life in much the same way. There were so many visual cues that you could hook things onto whether that was on the underground, sitting in the office or sending emails. With varying degrees of success I would try and find a pithy phrase that would stay uppermost in the mind that could be easily memorable days after the Sunday service. Andy Stanley talks about finding a ‘phrase that stays’. It’s the same principle, and Berger himself is convinced that ‘top of mind leads to tip of tongue’.

3.Emotion

Berger describes how contagious ideas, or products are also those that create an emotional response or connection. The idea for marketers is to craft an idea or message that make people feel something. This is something that Apple are brilliant at. Their products are meant to look and feel amazing. They are designed to create an emotional response. Have a look at any youtube apple ‘unboxing’ videos. They attract millions of views  just because someone has filmed themself unboxing and trying out a new Apple product. 

Perhaps you can think of something that is a little out of the ordinary, or something that’s a bit memorable or takes something familiar and enables people to see it in a new light or different angle. Berger writes, ‘rather than focusing on function, focus on feelings’.

4.Public

Berger suggests that when things are more observable it makes them easier to imitate. So take the fidget spinner as an example. You can fidget with a fidget spinner in private of course, but people didn’t. Children brought them to school, people were playing with them in the coffee shop, on the bus, on the way back home on the tube. There was a time when they were everywhere.  It was a social epidemic. Perhaps this is something useful to reflect on in your own context.

5.Practical value

The idea that ‘people like to help others, so if we can show that our product will help save time or money or add value, then it will spread’, Berger says.

I think of an underlying theme on social media that’s often talked about. The idea is to provide ‘value’. Not to get your audience to pay for your content or thought leadership, but to give it away to create value. To show up and help people live their life better. The aim is to help people and make people’s lives easier and simpler.

We love a good ‘life hack’ don’t we. Often those youtube videos will generate more views than others because we all want to know something that will make our life easier. When you’re communicating, have you thought about the practical value add you can bring to your listeners or viewers?

6.Stories

Jesus showed us the power of story to carry a powerful message of truth. His parables are still known in cultural consciousness. Berger says ‘we need to make our message so integral to the narrative that people can’t tell the story without it’. Do a bit of work and think about how your product, idea, message can be wrapped up in narrative. It might enable you to see the same thing but from a different angle, and your audience too. This article Storybrand might also be useful to you.

Here are the ‘6 STEPPS’ to becoming contagious according to Berger. What do you think? Does any of it resonate or can it be applied in your own context?