We all see things go viral on the Web or certain products that suddenly take off. It begs the question: Why do some things get talked about more than others?
“And how by understanding that science can companies and organizations and individuals get their stuff to catch on?” said Jonah Berger, Associate Marketing Professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, during our phone interview.
Jonah, who will be a keynote speaker at Email Summit 2015, has studied how products are used and why behaviors catch on. His book,Contagious: Why Things Catch On, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller on the topic.
Companies can get stuck in an “advertising” mindset, he said, and see that as the only way to communicate with consumers.
“While advertising is useful for some things, it’s not as effective as word-of-mouth for some other things. And so understanding how to both effectively use traditional advertising and word-of-mouth and blend those two approaches becomes really important,” he said.
Jonah provided four tips on how to best integrate the two and how to make your content go “viral.”
