The Secret Formula To Making Ideas Catch On

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Principle 3: Emotion
When we care, we share. So how can we craft messages and ideas that make people feel something? Naturally contagious content usually evokes some sort of emotion. Blending an iPhone is surprising. A potential tax hike is infuriating. Emotional things often get shared. So rather than harping on function, we need to focus on feelings. But as we’ll discuss, some emotions increase sharing, while others actually decrease it. So we need to pick the right emotions to evoke. We need to kindle the fire. Sometimes even negative emotions may be useful.

Principle 4: Public
Can people see when others are using our product or engaging in our desired behavior? The famous phrase “Monkey see, monkey do” captures more than just the human tendency to imitate. It also tells us that it’s hard to copy something you can’t see. Making things more observable makes them easier to imitate, which makes them more likely to become popular. So we need to make our products and ideas more public. We need to design products and initiatives that advertise themselves and create behavioral residue that sticks around even after people have bought the product or espoused the idea.

Principle 5: Practical Value
How can we craft content that seems useful? People like to help others, so if we can show them  how our products or ideas will save time, improve health, or save money, they’ll spread the word. But given how inundated people are with information, we need to make our message stand out. We need to understand what makes something seem like a particularly good deal. We need to highlight the incredible value of what we offer—monetarily and otherwise. And we need to package our knowledge and expertise so that people can easily pass it on.

Principle 6: Stories
What broader narrative can we wrap our idea in? People don’t just share information, they tell stories. But just like the epic tale of the Trojan Horse, stories are vessels that carry things such as morals and lessons. Information travels under the guise of what seems like idle chatter. So we need to build our own Trojan horses, embedding our products and ideas in stories that people want to tell. But we need to do more than just tell a great story. We need to make virality valuable. We need to make our message so integral to the narrative that people can’t tell the story without it.

These  are the  six principles of contagiousness: products or ideas that contain Social Currency and are Triggered, Emotional, Public, Practically Valuable, and wrapped into Stories. Each chapter focuses on one of these principles. These chapters bring together research and examples to show the science behind each principle and how individuals, companies, and organizations have applied the principles to help their products, ideas, and behaviors catch on.

These principles can be compacted into an acronym. Taken together they spell STEPPS. Think  of the principles as the six STEPPS to crafting contagious content. These ingredients lead ideas to get talked about and succeed. People talked about the hundred-dollar cheesesteak at Barclay Prime because it gave them Social Currency, was Triggered (high frequency of cheesesteaks in Philadelphia), Emotional (very surprising), Practically Valuable (useful information about high-quality steakhouse), and wrapped in a Story. Enhancing these components in messages, products, or ideas will make them more likely to spread and become popular. I hope that ordering the principles this way will make them easier to remember and use.*

* Note, however, that the recipe analogy breaks down in one respect. The principles are unlike a recipe because not all six ingredients are required to make a product or idea contagious. Sure, the more the better, but it’s not as though a product that is Public will fail because it’s not wrapped in a Story. So think of these principles less like a recipe and more like tasty salad toppings. Cobb salads, for example, often come with chicken, tomato, bacon, egg, avocado, and cheese. But a salad with just cheese and bacon is still delicious. The principles are relatively independent, so you can pick and choose whichever ones you want to apply.


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