Category: Research Insight

What Makes People Pass Along Your Content?

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If you are involved in social media or viral marketing, most likely you have wondered how to increase the passing-along of your viral content. My co-author Michelle Rogerson and I have been wondering about the same question too in our research project on the spreading of user-generated content online. As the starting point, we conducted an exploratory survey to find out people’s general tendency to share information online and what makes them more or less likely to share information with others. Using snowballing technique, we were able to gather responses from 156 Internet users.  These users’ ages ranged from 18 to 62 with a median age of 30.  46% of these users were males and 54% were females. Here I share with you some key findings from the survey.

“If my friend shares something with me, I will view it. But don’t really expect me to pass it on.”

We asked our respondents how likely they are to view information shared by someone they know, and over 60% of them agreed that it is quite likely (7 or higher on a 10-point scale).  This is good news because in the case of viral campaigns, encouraging people to share information with their friends is likely to increase the reach of the campaign. The bad news we found, however, is that way fewer of them would further pass on the information to their respective friends.  Less than 20% of them said they are likely to pass on information shared with them by their friends.  Interestingly, when asked the same question about information consumers found online themselves rather than shared by their friends, those who selected likely to pass on information increased to about 30%.  The lesson here is that first-order word-of-mouth (consumers passing on information they found themselves) is more likely to happen than second-order word-of-mouth (consumers passing on information that are found by their friends). Therefore, companies engaging in word-of-mouth campaigns should still try to spread the word to as many “seeds” as possible rather than counting on a few starting points.

Click and Pass on
Share self-discovery

“Make me believe that the information is relevant to my friends and I will pass it on.”

The survey contained an open-ended question asking the respondents to list the factors that would make them more likely to share information online.  The dominant reason listed (by 35% of the sample) was relevance to the friends that they are passing the information on to.  This is perhaps not surprising considering that few of us want to jam our friends’ inbox with junk information.  For companies, this means an opportunity to encourage passing-along by demonstrating the content’s relevance to a consumer’s social circle.  Financial incentives offered to friends by some referral programs is an example of this approach. The second most widely listed reason was something funny.  Apparently, we as human beings like to share laughter with others.  Below are the top five reasons the respondents cited ranked by frequency:

    1. Relevance to those sharing information with
    2. Humor
    3. Relevance to oneself
    4. Importance/worthiness of information
    5. Unusual/unique information


    Opinion leaders share more information but are also more likely to seek advice.Studying information sharing is not complete without considering opinion leaders, those individuals that are on the cutting edge and are likely to influence other people’s opinions.  We found that being an opinion leader increases the likelihood to share information with others by 38%, perhaps partially explaining why these people are opinion leaders in the first place.  While this finding seems rather obvious, what is not so obvious is the finding that opinion leaders are also more likely to seek advice from others such as family, friends, and neighbors. Compared with regular individuals, opinion leaders are 25% more likely to seek advice from others. This finding is important because we have often seen the argument that the right way to treat social media is to be social (in other words, interacting with others).  Our study finds concrete support for that.  A true opinion leader does not just broadcast information to others but also listens closely and actively seeks out others’ feedback.

    As we move forward to the next stage of the research project, we would love to hear your thoughts.  What makes you more likely to share stuff with other people?  As a company, how do you manage your viral campaign content and seeding process so that it can create the maximum ripple effect?

The Hidden Power of Context

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Retailers put a lot of thought into designing their store layout and ambiance. In the online world, websites also spend a great deal of effort designing their logos and images.  Even Twitter allows you to customize your own profile background. But do you know that other than fulfilling aesthetic and branding purposes, your graphics and other contextual cues can have much subtler (but still powerful) effects on how consumers think and what consumers do?

In recent years, consumer psychologists have made significant progress on alternative influences of consumer decision making.  Instead of treating consumers as cold, rational decision-makers, this research stream reveals that consumers are often driven by automatic processes that they are often not consciously aware of.

Example 1: Which sofa consumers buy depends on your website’s background image

Cloud vs. Penny

Naomi Mandel and Eric Johnson published a study in Journal of Consumer Research, in which they exposed consumers to the same online furniture store with only one subtle difference: one version had fluffy clouds and blue sky as the background, and the other had coin images on green-colored background.  They found that those who saw the fluffy cloud background were more likely to buy the more comfortable but pricier sofa, whereas those who saw the coin background were more inclined to choose the cheaper but less comfortable sofa. The reason behind such differences is that the different images primed different attributes (comfort vs. money) in the consumers’ mind, therefore increasing the weight of the corresponding attribute in consumers’ choices.

Example 2: Drive by Walmart on the way to shopping to avoid overspending

A more recent study by Tanya Chartrand and her colleagues published in the same journal looked at the subconscious activation of goals through contextual cues. In one of their experiments, individuals were asked to focus on the center of the computer screen to complete a task. In the meantime, the brands of prestige (e.g., Nordstrom) vs. thrift (e.g., Walmart) retailers were flashed randomly on the edges of the computer screen for 60 milliseconds, outside of the individuals’ focal attention area. In a subsequent choice between two brands of socks and between two microwaves, individuals who were flashed the prestige brands chose the more expensive brand than the cheaper brand in each task, and the reverse was true for those who were flashed the thrift brands. Interestingly, the researchers also found that once a specific goal (achieving prestige vs. saving money) is activated subconsciously, it grows stronger until the goal has been satisfied in a subsequent real choice. All of this happens without the consumers’ conscious awareness of what is affecting them.

Lessons Learned:

  • There are many more factors that affect consumer decision making than what companies normally pay attention to.
  • The graphics, banner ads, and other contextual cues on your website or in your store can significantly alter consumers’ decision related to your product. If your product excels on a specific attribute, you may want to play up graphics and contextual cues related to the attribute to make it more important.
  • The fact that these “innocent” contextual cues can affect consumers without their awareness brings interesting legal and ethical questions, similar to the long-debate surrounding subliminal advertising. For example, how far can marketers go in affecting consumers’ mind this way? What if such tactics are used on younger consumers who are less knowledgeable and therefore may be more subject to such influences?

What is your take on this?  Has your company ever tried such tactics? Or as a consumer, would you be offended if you know a marketer tries to influence you in this way?

Further Reading:

Mandel, Naomi and Eric J. Johnson (2002), “When Web Pages Influence Choice: Effects of Visual Primes on Experts and Novices,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 29 (September), p.235-245.

Chartrand, Tanya L. et al. (2008), “Nonconscious Goals and Consumer Choice,” Journal of Consumer Research, Vol. 35 (August), p.189-201.

What Do Marketing Scientists Have To Say About Social Media?

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This year’s INFORMS Marketing Science Conference paid lots of attention to social media and social networking. Quite a few sessions were devoted to the topic. Here I picked a few presentations with especial relevance to business practice and summarized them below.

1. Freemium model depends on users’ group membership and content contribution.

Presented by Gal Oestreicher-Singer from Tel Aviv University, this research analyzed a large dataset of 150,000 random existing users and a separate group of new subscribers of Last.fm. The authors wanted to find out under what conditions users are more likely to pay for premium services in a freemium model. Results suggest two main factors: (1) group membership and leadership: those functioning as leaders of Last.fm user groups are more likely to pay for a premium account. (2) Content contribution, in this case, posting of journal entries. Those who have written a journal entry on the site are more likely to pay up.  The effects of these factors, the authors found, exceeded the traditionally accepted influence of content consumption and local network size.  The authors also argue that the network position of the user within the community can also affect likelihood to pay. But this area is still being explored.

2. How To receive more incoming social links for your online shop?

In the social networking space for e-commerce, such as eBay, individual merchants can connect with other merchants by building links between their shops. Such incoming links can build traffic and increase business. So how can one increase the likelihood of being linked to?  Andrew Stephen, who recently joined the faculty at INSEAD, reported findings from his dissertation research that answer this question.  His research shows that reciprocity and assortment diversity are the two drivers of incoming links. In other words, merchants are more likely to have outgoing links to those who have incoming links to them, and they are more likely to link to those who have a large assortment of merchandise.

3. Celebrity, offensiveness, and honest labeling of content drive YouTube video success

I was especially excited about this presentation because it partially answers a burning question that has been on my mind for a while: “What makes some YouTube videos more successful than others?” The two presenters, Caroline Wiertz and Thorsten Hennig-Thurau from Cass Business School, City University, London, together with their co-author Michael Paul compared 100 top hit videos with 100 matching “flop” videos that were uploaded on the same day. They found three factors that have the biggest impact on the success of a video: offensiveness of the video content (i.e., controversy factor); featuring or association with a celebrity; and honest labeling of a video content’s via title, tags, and thumbnail. In a separate study, the three researchers tracked the number of views for 360 videos newly uploaded to YouTube over the course of a month. Their results suggest that the drivers of video views are different at different diffusion stages. In the beginning (the 1st day after posting), past channel success drives the number of views for the video. During the following days, however, existing # of views, volume and valence of user comments, and video description (via title, tags, and thumbnail) take over in predicting video popularity. In the final stage of their one-month tracking period, existing # of views and honest labeling become the most important driving factor. Their research findings offer clues to companies as to what to manage and pay attention to when doing viral marketing through YouTube.

4. Negative word-of-mouth effect accentuated by reviewer similarity and brand reputation

Ever wondered why bigger brands suffer huge backlashes from negative word-of-mouth? Debanjan Mitra from University of Florida addressed this question. By looking at book reviews from Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble websites and correlating them with sales rankings, he and his co-authors found that, besides the established finding of negative word-of-mouth having a larger effect on consumers than positive word-of-mouth, the similarity between reviewers and the audience further accentuate the effect. In other words, we are more affected by the negative opinions of people who are just like us. Furthermore, they found that the situation is even worse for higher-reputation brands (e.g., authors with higher ranking books).  Apparently, the higher reputation your brand has, the more you have to lose and the more devastating negative word-of-mouth can be. In the authors’ presentation title, they labeled this effect as “the weakness of strong ties”.

What do you think?  Do you agree with these marketing scientists findings and insights?