Jonah Berger Quotes

Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 percent to 50 percent of all purchasing decisions.

If something is built to show, it's build to grow.

Contagious content is like that - so inherently viral that it spreads regardless of who is doing the talking.

But although quality, price, and advertising contribute to products and ideas being successful, they don't explain the whole story.

In fact, the messages actually seemed to increase drug use. Kids aged twelve and a half to eighteen who saw the ads were actually more likely to smoke marijuana. Why? Because it made drug use more public. Think about observability and social proof. Before seeing the message, some kids might never have thought about taking drugs. Others might have considered it but have been wary about doing the wrong thing. But anti-drug ads often say two things simultaneously. They say that drugs are bad, but they also say that other people are doing them. And as we've discussed throughout this chapter, the more others seem to be doing something, the more likely people are to think that thing is right or normal and what they should be doing as well.

Nobody talks about boring companies, boring products, or boring ads," argues one prominent word-of-mouth advocate.

In contrast to the notion that any publicity is good publicity, negative reviews hurt sales for some books. But for books by new or relatively unknown authors, negative reviews increased sales by 45%.... Even a bad review or negative word of mouth can increase sales if it informs or reminds people that the product or idea exists.

So to get people talking, companies and organizations need to mint social currency. Give people a way to make themselves look good while promoting their products and ideas along the way. There are three ways to do that: (1) find inner remarkability; (2) leverage game mechanics; and (3) make people feel like insiders.

Even in cases where most people are doing the right thing, talking about the minority who are doing the wrong thing can encourage people to give in to temptation.

It has been said that when people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate one another. We look to others for information about what is right or good to do in a given situation, and this social proof shapes everything from the products we buy to the candidates we vote for. The phrase 'Monkey see, monkey do' captures more than just our tendency to follow others. If people can't see what others are doing, they can't imitate them. So to get our products and ideas to become popular we need to make them more publicly observable

Why do some products, ideas, and behaviors succeed when others fail?

Virality isn't born, it's made.

Marketing is about spreading the love.

Word of mouth is more effective than traditional advertising for two key reasons. First, it's more persuasive.

Connecting with others is rewarding; it makes us feel like we're not alone in the world.

As it turns out, if something is supposed to be secret, people might well be more likely to talk about it. The reason? Social currency. People share things that make them look good to others.

Making things more observable makes them easier to imitate, which makes them more likely to become popular.

If word-of-mouth pundits agree on anything, it's that being interesting is essential if you want people to talk. Most buzz marketing books will tell you that. So will social media gurus. "Nobody talks about boring companies, boring products, or boring ads," argues one prominent word-of-mouth advocate. Unfortunately, he's wrong.

We need to make the private public.

Harvard neuroscientists Jason Mitchell and Diana Tamir found that disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding. In one study, Mitchell and Tamir hooked subjects up to brain scanners and asked them to share either their own opinions and attitudes ("I like snowboarding") or the opinions and attitudes of another person ("He likes puppies"). They found that sharing personal opinions activated the same brain circuits that respond to rewards like food and money. So talking about what you did this weekend might feel just as good as taking a delicious bite of double chocolate cake.

Physiological arousal or activation drives people to talk and share. We need to get people excited or make them laugh. We need to make them angry rather than sad.