The Science of Social Media

The Science of Social Media How to engineer contagious ideas. Dan Zarrella Social Media Scientist

Unicorns and Rainbows

Unicorns & Rainbows Myth: Don’t call yourself a guru.

Science: `

Ideas do not spread because they are “good.”

Meme: A unit of cultural inheritance.

Our world is made of memes.

Memetics: The study of cultural transfer.

Variation + Competition Evolution

Takeaway: Try lots of campaigns and iterate on what works.

R0 Reproduction Rate (The average number of new infections a single infection case will cause)

R0 >1 Epidemic R0 =1 Endemic R0 <1 Die out

Selection pressure: a factor that reduces R0.

The variation best suited to pressures wins.

Fruit Flies Fecundity Longevity Elephants

ReTweets Fecundity Longevity Religions

Exposure Awareness Motivation

Reach Exposure Awareness Motivation

Let R0 = .1 •If seed = 10 •If seed = 100,000 •Generation 2 = 1 •Generation 2 = 10,000 •Generation 3 < 1 •Generation 3 = 1,000 •Generation 4 = 100 •Generation 5 = 10 •Generation 6 = 1

Big Seeds

Takeaway: Audience size does matter.

Influencers

Takeaway: Find and target your influencers.

Exposure Attention Awareness Motivation

Breaking through the noise

Takeaway: Bigger & louder works – to a point.

Selective attention: hearing your name across a crowded, noisy room.

Takeaway: Personalize: talk to your audience.

Avoiding crowds

Takeaway: Avoid link fatigue.

Exposure Awareness Sharing Motivation

Why do people share?

Performance

Reputation

Takeaway: Help your audience look cool.

Social exchange

“… the more valuable the sentiment or activity the members exchange with one another, the greater the average frequency of interaction of the members.” Social Behavior as Exchange George C. Homans

Novelty

Scarcity

Warnings

Information voids

Takeaway: Don’t let information voids form.

Imitation

Social Proof

“We view a behavior as more correct… to the degree that we see others performing it” -Robert Cialdini

Information cascades

A ? ? ? ? ? B

The goliath effect

The villain is wronging the victim.

Communal Recreation

Zombies Marketing Me

Takeaway: Use combined relevance.

What do people share?

Gossip is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress. -Liz Smith

“…advertisements that were both original and familiar attracted the largest amount of attention…” Breaking Through the Clutter: Benefits of Advertisement Originality and Familiarity for Brand Attention and Memory Rik Pieters, Luk Warlop and Michel Wedel 2002

New/Old

Most ReTweetable Words & Phrases 1. you 11. please retweet 2. twitter 12. great 3. please 13. social media 4. retweet 14. 10 5. post 15. follow 6. blog 16. how to 7. social 17. top 8. free 18. blog post 9. media 19. check out 10. help 20. new blog post

Takeaway: Don’t forget calls- to-action.

Least ReTweetable Words & Phrases 1. game 11. well 2. going 12. sleep 3. haha 13. gonna 4. lol 14. hey 5. but 15. tomorrow 6. watching 16. tired 7. work 17. some 8. home 18. back 9. night 19. bored 10. bed 20. listening

Takeaway: Don’t talk about yourself so much.

Dan Zarrella @DanZarrella

http://blog.hubspot.com	1535
http://groovemonkey.com	1402
http://danzarrella.com	1243
http://www.socialbeta.cn	762
http://www.novavizia.com	517
http://www.scoop.it	478
http://blog.campalyst.com	442
http://www.hubspot.com	422
http://paper.li	330
http://midiassociais.blog.br	260
http://www.emarketinglicious.fr	217
http://www.thepivottable.com	188
http://eshopperblog.blogspot.com	175
http://www.jornaldoempreendedor.com.br	164
http://www.bouwtweets.nl	142
http://www.upstream.nl	129
http://www.vaninadelobelle.com	125
http://www.juanmarketing.com	115
http://www.conseilsmarketing.fr	115
http://www.conseilsmarketing.com	99
http://jaichoi.blogspot.com	89
http://www.hubert-senant.com	84
http://www.walk-the-net.com	80
http://eyeonlearning.blogspot.com	76
http://www.20ju.com	65
http://www.sociallyperforming.com	63
http://resultson.com.br	61
http://feeds2.feedburner.com	59
http://lucaconti.nova100.ilsole24ore.com	58
http://kamilmehmetozkan.com	55
http://socialmedia.startpagina.nl	53
http://ansteckend.com	53
http://georgycohen.com	48
http://letsgosocial.nl	46
http://www.inboundconference.com	42
http://www.jlins.com.br	42
http://contentandcopy.com.au	41
http://vint.sogeti.nl	39
http://blog.rykte.com.br	39
http://mushbloom.co.uk	38
http://hagenmanagement.posterous.com	37
http://fernando-comet.blogspot.com	36
http://static.slidesharecdn.com	36
http://eshopperblog.blogspot.com.br	32
http://www.marketing-ippogrifo.com	31
http://hagen-management.at	30
http://csteacher-tw.blogspot.com	29
http://jujo00obo2o234ungd3t8qjfcjrs3o6k-a-sites-opensocial.googleusercontent.com	29
http://storify.com	29
http://www.rss-ais.com	24
http://translate.googleusercontent.com	22

The Science of Social Media

by Dan Zarrella on Oct 28, 2010

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