People want to share interesting experiences to gain clout.
- Take advantage of self enhancement and identity signaling
- Example: Sharing images of an expensive meal, probably with the hashtag “foodie”
Long before they had a mental health connotation, “triggers” were stimuli that initiate a response from a possible consumer. Anything that reminds you of a product is a trigger.
- Businesses try to link their products with tunes, actions, celebrities, etc.
- Example: Taco Bell making us all think that they created the Chihuahua using Looney-Tunes-quality hypnotism.
Businesses try to illicit strong emotions to cause people to share their content as much as possible.
- Take advantage of self enhancement and identity signaling
- Example: The ASPCA using those Sarah Mclachlan songs to make people guilt-donate.
Businesses take advantage of the theory of “social proof,” when people try to copy their peers as a result of their psychological imperative to “fit in”.
- Essentially, if a company can make a number of people promote that their product is cool, there will be a domino effect with others.
- Example: Retail websites having totally, completely, 100% real reviews for their products. Every product is five stars huh?
A product/site/experience should be practical- that is, it should actually be effective at what is advertised as being able to do.
- People commonly look for content that is useful to them
- Example: Those sites that give you “life hacks”, because even though you’ll never use them, you always think you might.
