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The results of research into the psychological motivations behind facebook sharing (literature review) with an effort to understand how "good deeds" can be made more shareable by mission-driven organizations. The full (boring?) version is here: http://www.slideshare.net/jkatz81/sharing-altruistic-behavior-on-facebook
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Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.1
5 rules for helping good deeds go viral June 2012 Jon Katz, University of California Berkeley It is now widely accepted that peer influence is a powerful tool shaping our behavior both online and offline. Facebook, Twitter, and many other online social tools provide ample evidence of how sharing influences others, and for the first time these tools are allowing us to track what is being shared amongst friends and why. As many have lamented before me, there are far too many cat pictures on the Internet. There is also a lot of conspicuous consumption being shared: fancy meals, fancy trips, and fancy gadgets. Aside from measurably driving traffic and purchases, this reinforces certain cultural norms around behavior. One kind of behavior that is not shared very often is behavior driven by altruistic or moral intentions. Though we do see them, there are not a lot of updates that read: “I just volunteered” or “I just called my congress person to ask that they overturn Citizens United.” Before you start thinking about times you or your friends have shared such things, consider these search results from Facebook:
V.
source: Facebook retrieved 6-‐7-‐12
or
V.
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.2
source: Facebook retrieved 6-‐7-‐12
Feel free to play around yourself and let me know what you come up with. Some of the differences surely have to do with incentive programs and promotional budgets, but that doesn’t explain all of it. Educating users how important sharing is to a cause is a good thought, and some use this tactic:
source: causes.com
source: Avaaz.org However, information alone rarely has as much impact as reason would suggest. In order to increase sharing rates, we have to look beyond the cause and examine the motivations behind sharing.
Why people share Though academic studies of Facebook are limited by a short half-‐life and incomplete methodologies, the literature seems to agree that the three largest reasons for sharing on Facebook are:
1. Build and maintain an aspirational identity (project/disclose) 2. Create and maintain relationships (interact)
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.3
3. Provide information or entertainment to others others (help)
In addition, the vast majority of people claim that they are not motivated by the desire to exert influence over others. Unfortunately, that is exactly what well-‐intentioned social marketers are hoping they will do. There are also several barriers to sharing. The most important is potential damage to reputation or relationships. This potential damage is the primary limiting factor of Facebook sharing. The other is the cost of time and effort, which is fairly minimal. Studies have also shown that users tend to share on Facebook in order to maximize expected rewards. Anyone trying to maximize sharing should focus on ensuring the three motivations above are met and the potential damage to a user is limited. Given these motivations, what factors of a post induce users to share? I have condensed my findings into 5 rules for increasing the sharing of moralistic behavior:
Rule #1: Segment before softening A primary takeaway from Facebook studies is that different people have different comfort levels with what they share and with whom they share it. Where possible, identify those users who are dedicated and ask the most of them. The following four rules suggest different ways to make sharing more appealing to constituents who are not otherwise willing to share their beliefs or behaviors more broadly. In many cases, this weakens the impact of the message, but is better than no share at all. If somebody always signs petitions, but never shares petitions with their friends, perhaps a lighter touch needs to be applied. Many, more complicated segmenting rules can be applied, but this first one is the most impactful.
Rule #2: Highlight social success and normalcy People want to appear socially successful and normal. Perceived success is socially attractive and, there is a social cost to being different from your audience. Studies (and experience) have shown that we are prone to dislike those who disagree with us, so avoiding disagreement is socially desirable. There is also a widespread defensive backlash against any action or speech that can be interpreted as judgmental or “holier than thou”. For these reasons, people choose to avoid potentially controversial topics, and this acts as a barrier to sharing. Here are some ways to overcome these barriers: Tone down contraversy Anyone hoping to generate a politically oriented or “moralistic” message should make an effort to “defang” the message. This may limit the intensity of the message, but will ensure faster, broader sharing.
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.4
To illustrate this point, consider if an occupy supporter who works in Silicon Valley would prefer to share with coworkers that they were at:
this rally
or this one?
Affiliate with socially desirable qualities and social status If the altruistic behavior is not consistent with social norms a potential strategy is to affiliate the behavior with what is considered normal or socially desirable. PETA recently attempted this, with a campaign suggesting that vegan men are studs in bed. (Side note: In line with recent history, PETA also managed to make the campaign extremely offensive).
Change what is normal Lastly, it can be helpful to temporarily change the norms by manufacturing a fad. Kony2012 did this effectively through their creation of a “twitter bomb”—effectively taking over the twitter trends for a short period.
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.5
Rule #3: Communicate indirectly Nobody writes on their profile “I am well-‐rounded and popular.” Instead most people try to demonstrate this by showing rather than telling. Studies have shown that pictures and testimonials from friends are far more persuasive than blatant self-‐promotion. They are also safer—potentially avoiding the backlash associated with self-‐promotion or disagreement with a message. For this reason, the vast majority of Facebook disclosures are indirect, through pictures, affiliations and second-‐hand quoting or sharing. Unlike conspicuous consumption, an altruistic act is itself positive, and thus requires an extra layer of camouflage to avoid backlash. This is hard for a donor to share:
This is easier:
Here are some tips for camouflaging the message to help potential sharers avoid blatant self-‐promotion:
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.6
Use vague messaging In the same way that achievements are currently shared on Facebook, altruistic behaviors or qualities should be reflected indirectly and mirror what is already being shared, for example:
• Share an article about people who made transitions to low-‐energy lifestyles with the comment, “Inspiring”.
• Share a vegan recipe without explicitly saying it is vegan • ‘Like’ Habitat for Humanity (Not as popular as Febreze, but still indirect) • Ask the question, “Is it true that using hot water in your washing machine is
unnecessary?” Include visual cues Like LiveStrong bracelets and pink breast cancer ribbons, online visual symbols can provide the perfect balance between content and style. Here are some examples that work online:
• Pictures of events (volunteering, voting, etc.) • Changing your profile picture. Two recent successful examples of this include users
posting pictures wearing a hoodie for Travyon Martin and blacking out their profile picture to protest SOPA:
source: http://www.blackoutsopa.org/ Divert Attention In addition to creating subtle messages, users can promote altruistic behavior while avoiding social backlash by crediting others for their altruism.
source: causes.com
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.7
One can applaud the efforts of friends who have done good deeds, publicly ask friends to do favors for them, or publicly invite friends to share, thereby giving friends a “free pass” to promote their behavior.
Ask your friends to tell about a time they helped somebody older than them…
A successful example is the Wish feature on Causes.com. This lets users ask their friends to publicly donate on their behalf as a birthday wish, wedding wish, etc.
Removing any obvious altruism from the sharer’s action might make this even more effective. For example:
Rule #4: Create safe, rewarding spaces There is a strong incentive to preach to the choir. People are much more likely to share behavior with like-‐minded individuals. This has a lot to do with the issues of normalcy described above. A study of an environmental app of Facebook found that environmentally conscious users were much more likely to share when the community was limited to environmentalists, in part because they were lauded for their actions rather than derided. In addition, a study of product recommendations found that strong communities were found to lead to higher rates of sharing and communication.
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.8
Help users target Organizations would benefit from suggesting safe, meaningful sharing recipients for individuals. Most mainstream users are not interested in joining a group dedicated to a cause. Rather than manufacturing a community, organizations can promote sharing with connections that have taken similar actions or sharing with close connections. Studies show that close connections are much more likely to have sympathetic viewpoints AND more likely to be impacted by a users’ input. Help users find community Organizations should give users the option of inviting their connections into the process, or finding new connections with similar interests:
or
Because sharing norms in a community reinforces norms within the community (important), but does not directly spread ideas outside a community (bad), refer to Rule #1.
Rule #5: Spice up what is being shared People see what they share as a reflection of themselves. For this reason, they curate carefully what they will promote and not promote—not merely on the basis of politics, but on the basis of perceived utility to others. They ask themselves, “Is this content important, exciting, digestible, and relevant enough?” I recently ran a sharing experiment among classmates, and though I garnered a respectable 21% share rate (among 108 respondents1), here were the most typical explanations from people who chose not to share:
It was more that this just [didn’t] seem like an important enough thing to share... Felt others would think spammy I only post REALLY interesting/important things to FB. Didn't seem worth it.
1 All colleagues of the author at the Berkeley Haas school of business
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.9
Many, many others have studied and written about what makes content viral, so I won’t harp on it too much2, but suffice it to say this is one area where creativity can add tremendous value. The following post is not going to be shared or reflect well on the user, no matter how correct it may be (see Rule #3: Be indirect):
Making a music video, however, led to 5 Million views:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zulEMWj3sVA In fact, in the space of morality motivated content there is a new organization, called Upworthy, which takes important political information and disguises it in attention-‐grabbing, humorous, and easily digestible costumes.
Figure 1 From Upworthy.com's Facebook stream (https://www.facebook.com/Upworthy, accessed 6-11-12) 2 Here are some from Mashable alone: http://mashable.com/2012/04/11/viral-‐video-‐seedwell/ http://mashable.com/2010/10/19/viral-‐video-‐science/ http://mashable.com/2012/04/04/viral-‐brand-‐videos-‐how-‐to/
Good Deeds go Viral Katz p.10
In doing so, they copy many of the features of the inane viral content that spreads quickly online. The byline from their website is: “Make your friends accidentally think”. See Mashable’s cover of their launch here.
Conclusion Sharing on Facebook represents an enormous opportunity for good behavior to spread, but given the dominant motivations and norms for sharing, altruistic content is less likely to be shared. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Though Upworthy is new, early results have been remarkable. According to TechPresident, in just one week Upworthy generated over a 250,000 views of an existing Obama campaign ad mostly by changing the headline. And making content more entertaining isn’t the only way. Organizations should experiment with the paths described above to increase the sharing of altruistic behaviors on Facebook. The solutions proposed in this paper are far from exhaustive; as with many organizational challenges, success lies in paying close attention to the motivations and needs of your clients and developing innovative solutions to ensure those needs are met. Jon Katz is a recent MBA graduate from the Berkeley Haas School of Business. Prior to that, he managed strategy and development of online marketing tools at Yahoo. LinkedIn profile http://www.linkedin.com/in/katzjon. Contact: [email protected]