Contagious: Why Things Catch On (21 page)

But what if stores made the practical value easier to see? They could put up a sign at checkout that shows other people in line how much the person checking out saved. Or the store might ring a bell every time someone saved more than twenty-five dollars. This would make two things happen. First, people would get a better sense of how much they could save by getting the card, encouraging anyone who doesn’t have one yet to get one. Second, it would allow people to see the impressive amounts that some other shoppers were able to save, encouraging them to transmit these remarkable stories of practical value. As discussed in the Public chapter, it’s hard to talk about something you can’t see.

MORE THAN MONEY

I am terrible at investing. Too many options, too much daily volatility, and too much risk. I’d rather keep my money in a cardboard box under my bed than put it in some mutual fund that could lose money. The first time I bought stocks I barely dipped my toe in. I picked two or three that seemed like good long-term investments based on being strong brands and tried to leave it at that.

But my curiosity got the best of me. I frantically checked every day how each stock was doing. A dollar up today? Huge success! Thirty-five cents down the next day? Hopelessly despondent and considering giving up investing ever again.

Needless to say I needed help. So when it came time to put
money in my 401(k) for work, I picked some safe index funds that track the stock market.

Soon after, Vanguard, the firm that manages my retirement plan, sent me a short e-mail asking if I’d like to receive its monthly newsletter,
MoneyWhys.
Like most people, I try to avoid signing up for new mailing lists, but this one actually seemed useful. Last-minute tax tips, responses to common questions about investing, and an answer (or at least an opinion) on that age-old question of whether money can really buy happiness. I signed up.

Now, once a month, Vanguard sends me a short e-mail with useful information about financial management. One month it was tips on what homeowner’s insurance actually covers. Another month it provided tips on using your PC to track personal finances.

To be honest, I don’t read every e-mail Vanguard sends (sorry, Vanguard), but I end up forwarding many of the ones I do read to people I know who I think will find them useful. I sent the piece about homeowner’s insurance to a colleague who just bought a home. I forwarded the piece about tracking personal finances to a friend who is trying to become more fiscally responsible. Vanguard nicely packages its expertise into a short, tight bundle of useful information, and the practical value made me pass it along. And along the way I’m spreading the word about Vanguard and its investment expertise.

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Useful information, then, is another form of practical value. Helping people do things they want to do, or encouraging them to do things they should do. Faster, better, and easier.

As we discussed in the Emotions chapter, our analysis of
The New York Times
Most E-Mailed list found that articles about health and education were some of the most frequently shared.
Recipes and reviews of up-and-coming restaurants were also highly shared. One reason is that these types of articles all provide useful information. The health section suggests solutions for people with hearing loss and techniques for boosting mental fitness in middle age. The education section covers useful programs for teens and provides insight into the college admissions process. Sharing this type of content with others enables them to eat, live, and learn better.

Look at the content you’ve been e-mailed over the past few months and you’ll see similar patterns. Articles about sunscreen brands that
Consumer Reports
rated the best, tips to recover quickly from exercise, or hints for great pumpkin carving design around Halloween. All these things are
useful.
Practical advice is shareable advice.

In thinking about why some useful content gets shared more, a couple of points are worth noting. The first is how the information is packaged. Vanguard doesn’t send out a rambling four-page e-mail with twenty-five advice links about fifteen different topics. It sends out a short, one-page note, with a key header article and three or four main links below it. It’s easy to see what the main points are, and if you want to find out more, you can simply click on the links. Many of the most viral articles on
The New York Times
and other websites have a similar structure. Five ways to lose weight. Ten dating tips for the New Year. The next time you’re waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store, take a look at the magazines and you’ll see the same idea being applied. Short lists focused around a key topic.

A cosmetic manufacturer makes a helpful iPhone application for business travelers. In addition to providing local weather information, it also provides expert skin care advice that is tailored to those local conditions. Humidity, rain, and air quality affect
your hair and skin, so the application tells you the right way to respond. This practically valuable information not only is useful, but also demonstrates the company’s knowledge and expertise in this domain.

The second key is the audience. Some stories or information have a broader audience than others. In the United States, at least, more people follow professional football than follow water polo. Similarly, you probably have more friends that like American restaurants than like Ethiopian restaurants.

You might think that content that has a broader audience is more likely to be shared. A piece about football should be shared more than one about water polo; a review about a new American restaurant should be passed on more than a review of a new Ethiopian place. After all, people have way more friends with whom they could share the article, so shouldn’t it end up reaching more people overall?

The problem with this assumption, though, is that just because people
can
share with more people doesn’t mean they will. In fact, narrower content may actually be more likely to be shared because it reminds people of a specific friend or family member and makes them feel compelled to pass it along. You might have a lot of friends who like American food or football. But because so many people are interested in that type of thing, no one person strongly comes to mind when you come across related content. In contrast, you may have only one friend who cares about Ethiopian restaurants or water polo, but if you read an article about those topics you think about your friend right away. And because it seems so uniquely perfect for her, you feel you
have
to share it.

So while broadly relevant content could be shared more, content that is obviously relevant to a narrow audience may actually be more viral.

A NOTE ON TRUTH

You may have heard that vaccines cause autism. If so, you’re not alone. In 1998, a paper was published in a medical journal suggesting that an immunization against measles, mumps, and rubella could cause autism in children. Health-related news spreads fast, particularly when it relates to kids, and soon lots of people were talking about the potential downsides to vaccines. As a result, childhood vaccination rates decreased.

All this would be good if the link between vaccines and autism were true. But it’s not. There is no scientific evidence that vaccines cause autism. The original paper turned out to be a fraud. The doctor who authored it had manipulated evidence, apparently owing to conflict of interest, and after being found guilty of serious professional misconduct, lost his medical license. But even though the information was false, lots of people shared it.

The reason is practical value. People weren’t trying to share false things, they just heard something they thought was useful and they wanted others’ kids to be safe. But many people didn’t hear the news that the original report had been discredited, and so they continued to share an incorrect narrative. Our desire to share helpful things is so powerful that it can make even false ideas succeed. Sometimes the drive to help takes a wrong turn.

So the next time someone tells you about a miracle cure, or warns about the health risks of a particular food or behavior, try to verify that information independently before you pass it on. False information can spread just as quickly as the truth.

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Practical value is about helping. This chapter discussed the mechanics of value and the psychology of deals, but it’s important
to remember why people share that type of information in the first place. People like to help one another. We go out of our way to give advice or send others information that will make them better off. Sure, some of this may be selfish. We think we’re right and we can’t help but toss our two cents into other people’s lives. But not all of it is about us. It’s also about altruism, the inherent goodness of people. We care about others and we want to make their lives better.

Of the six principles of contagiousness that we discuss in the book, Practical Value may be the easiest to apply.

Some products and ideas already have lots of Social Currency, but to build it into a video for a blender takes some energy and creativity. Figuring out how to create Triggers also requires some effort, as does evoking emotion. But finding Practical Value isn’t hard. Almost every product or idea imaginable has something useful about it. Whether it saves people money, makes them happier, improves health, or saves them time, all of these things are news you can use. So thinking about why people gravitate to our product or idea in the first place will give us a good sense of the underlying practical value.

The harder part is cutting through the clutter. There are lots of good restaurants and helpful websites, so we need to make our product or idea stand out. We need to highlight incredible value and use the Rule of 100. Like Vanguard, we need to package our knowledge and expertise so that people learn about us while they pass it along. We need to make it clear why our product or idea is so useful that people just have to spread the word. News you can use.

6.
Stories

The war had raged for ten long years, with no finish in sight. According to legend, Odysseus devised a cunning plan to end the fruitless siege. The Greeks built a giant wooden horse and hid their best warriors inside. The rest of their army then sailed away, pretending to return to their homeland and leaving the monumental horse behind on the beach.

The Trojans found the horse and dragged it into Troy as a symbol of their victory. They tied ropes around the beast’s neck and dozens of men set huge log rollers underneath the wooden body to pull it slowly up from the beach. Others worked to take down the gate so that the monstrous sculpture could be dragged inside the city walls.

Once the statue was inside, the Trojans celebrated the end of the decade-long conflict. They decorated the temples with greenery, unearthed the jugs of sacrificial wine, and danced to rejoice at the conclusion of their ordeal.

But that night, while the city lay unconscious in drunken slumber, the Greeks sprang from their hiding place. They slid to the ground, silenced the sentries, and opened the huge gates to
the city. The rest of the Greek army sailed back under the cover of darkness and soon joined them, easily walking through the very gates they had fruitlessly assaulted for so many years.

The city was able to stand a decade of battle, but it could not withstand an attack from within. Once inside, the Greeks destroyed the town, decisively ending the Trojan War.

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The story of the Trojan Horse has been passed on for thousands of years. Scientists and historians estimate that the
battle took place around 1170 BC, but the story was not written down until many years later. For centuries the tale was transmitted orally as an epic poem, spoken or sung to music.

The story reads like a modern-day reality show. It’s full of twists and turns that include personal vendettas, adultery, and double crosses. Through a potent mixture of drama, romance, and action, it holds listeners’ interest.

But the story of the Trojan Horse also carries an underlying message: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” A more general interpretation would be “never trust your enemies, even when they seem friendly.” In fact it is exactly
when
they are making such overtures that you should be especially suspicious. So the tale of the Trojan Horse is more than just an entertaining story. It also teaches an important lesson.

Still, if Homer and Virgil had simply wanted to teach people a lesson, couldn’t they have done it more efficiently? Couldn’t they have gotten right to the point rather than writing an epic poem with hundreds of lines of poetry?

Of course. But would the lesson have had the same impact? Probably not.

By encasing the lesson in a story, these early writers ensured
that it would be passed along—and perhaps even be believed more wholeheartedly than if the lesson’s words were spoken simply and plainly. That’s because people don’t think in terms of information. They think in terms of
narratives.
But while people focus on the story itself, information comes along for the ride.

STORIES AS VESSELS

Stories are the original form of entertainment. Imagine you were a Greek citizen in 1000 BC. There was no Internet. No
SportsCenter
or six o’clock news. No radio or newspapers. So if you wanted entertainment, stories were the way to get it. The Trojan Horse,
The Odyssey
, and other famous tales were the entertainment of the day. People would gather round a fire, or sit in an amphitheater, to hear these epic narratives told again and again.

Narratives are inherently more engrossing than basic facts. They have a beginning, middle, and end. If people get sucked in early, they’ll stay for the conclusion. When you hear people tell a good story you hang on every word. You want to find out whether they missed the plane or what they did with a house full of screaming nine year olds. You started down a path and you want to know how it ends. Until it does, they’ve captured your attention.