Contagious: Why Things Catch On

by Jonah Berger

If you want to craft contagious content, try to build your own Trojan Horse. But make sure you think about valuable virality. Make sure the information you want people to remember and transmit is critical to the narrative.

build a Social Currency–laden, Triggered, Emotional, Public, Practically Valuable Trojan Horse, but don’t forget to hide your message inside. Make sure your desired information is so embedded into the plot that people can’t tell the story without it.

Social Currency We share things that make us look good Triggers Top of mind, tip of tongue Emotion When we care, we share Public Built to show, built to grow Practical Value News you can use Stories Information travels under the guise of idle chatter

Social Currency

Does talking about your product or idea make people look good? Can you find the inner remarkability? Leverage game mechanics? Make people feel like insiders?

Triggers Consider the context. What cues make people think about your product or idea? How can you grow the habitat and make it come to mind more often? Emotion Focus on feelings. Does talking about your product or idea generate emotion? How can you kindle the fire? Public Does your product or idea advertise itself? Can people see when others are using it? If not, how can you make the private public? Can you create behavioral residue that sticks around even after people use it? Practical Value Does talking about your product or idea help people help others? How can you highlight incredible value, packaging your knowledge and expertise into useful information others will want to di...