2.2. The STEPPS principles for highly shareable content

STEPPS

I’m going to talk about highly shareable or “viral” content based on a talk by Jonah Berger. Jonah Is somewhat of an expert in viral marketing and this discussion called Contagious moves through 6 ideas that can be incorporated into your content to give it a greater chance of going viral.

We start at Social Currency – will sharing this content make your audience look good, or smart? If you have created a piece of content that enhances someone’s personality, or increases their knowledge, they may want to share this with their friends because it makes them look good in the eyes of their peers – this is Social Currency.

Number two is Triggers – What content can you create that will “trigger” someone into remembering it later? Think of the song “Friday” by Rebecca Black. The trigger here is that every Friday people would post this song, or memes about this song which gave it longevity and virality. Companies will try and pair their product with a popular theme or subject such as linking Kit Kats with Coffee in the hope that when people think of coffee, they think of Kit Kat. After Kit Kat ran this campaign, kit kat sales were up by a third, so our second STEP is Triggers.

Coming in at number three is Emotions. Strong emotions equal sharing. These emotions could be awe, or happiness but even negative emotions like anxiety and anger, which if you have a look at the news, politics or media, they link with emotions now more than ever. Even though strong emotions are good, the one we want to stay away from is Sadness, unless sadness is part of the rollercoaster of emotions you are taking your audience through, and ending on a happy note.

Number 4 is Public – what is everyone else doing? The example here is if your neighbours are all buying a new car, you are more likely to buy a new car as well. So how visible is your product to others? Apple computers used to orient their logo on a Macbook to the user, but once the laptop was open, it was upside down to everyone looking, so a decision was made to turn the logo upside down, so it was facing the right way to everyone else.

We move on to number 5 – practical value. Think about what you can provide of VALUE to your audience. What can you give away for free in the form of knowledge, or downloadable e-books, or how to guides, or recipes that people can use? What value does your content have for the audience and why would they share this content? Think about this when creating your content and only provide content of value.

And lastly, storytelling comes in at number six. Everyone loves a good story, take people on a journey behind the scenes of your company, show us the people behind the desks, how is your product made? How is your product packed? I’ve seen content on TikTok recently of the company showing customers orders being selected, packed and shipped – it’s so simple but gives such a great story behind the company.

So there we have it, 6 different ideas that you can think about and incorporate into your content – Social Currency, Triggers, Emotions, Public, Practical Value and Storytelling.