The Science of Social Media

The always informative and entertaining Dan Zarrella, Social Media Scientist at HubSpot, recorded and shared a video of his presentation on the Science of Social Media when he gave it at Harvard this winter.  He always backs his presentations up with a lot of numbers, which I am skipping here to keep the blog post relatively short.  I am also skipping information I’ve already shared from other presentations Dan has given.  Here’s all the new stuff I learned:

Is viral content really that great?

Marketers like to generate buzz—no surprise there—and to do so we think, “Let’s create something to go viral!”  But should that really be your goal?

Dan showed a couple of graphs that compared longevity to fecundity.  Religion lasts a long time and spread slowly, while retweets are spread quickly but don’t last long.  When you are creating any type of marketing tool, from new messaging to campaigns, think about whether you want to create ideas that will spread slowly and last or spread rapidly and be forgotten.

Just like Maslow has a Hierarchy of Needs, Zarrella has a Hierarchy of Contagiousness, which is shaped like an ice cream cone.  Up top you have level 1: Exposure.  In the smaller middle, you have level 2: Awareness.  Down at the tiny bottom is level 3: Motivation.

Takeaway: It is very important to expose a lot of people to your idea, or in other words, increase the size of your reach, so it is acted upon.

Twitter is great for information sharing, if….

On Twitter, Zarrella has found a few things:

• People who have a photo or logo on their profile have far more followers than those who don’t.
• As the amount of self-references increases (how often people and companies talk about themselves), the amount of followers decreases.
• The same is true for negative remarks.
• People who use Twitter share information more frequently and with more people.

Takeaway: Find and target your influencers.

To be heard, avoid the crowds

To break through the noise and gain a lot of exposure, you can be big and loud.  It works, to a point.  The better option is to avoid crowds.

Click-through rates (CTR) on social media:

• On Twitter, CTR spikes on weekends as Twitter slows down.
• Same on Facebook.
• Same with email marketing.
• If you tweet more than two links per hour, CTR plummets.

Takeaway: To break through the noise on social media, send out tweets, Facebook posts and emails on the weekends–and avoid link fatigue.

Build a reputation

Performing for people on social media is a big motivator, as is developing a reputation for sharing relevant information.  If you’re a primary source of great info, the more people want to interact with you.

Novelty is also very important, and it’s a function of scarcity.  Sharing new, timely, useful information helps to build and uphold your reputation on social media.

Even before social media, rumors spread in an information void.  However, ideas also spread in an information void.  If you can get your information out ahead of a slow news time, your idea could spread rather quickly.  It’s a double-edged sword, though, since your pending information (or complete lack of information—see Steve Jobs’ health) could also become a rumor.

Social proof does not always equal success

Imitation on social media is called social proof.  The more we see someone take an action, the more that idea takes effect.  Think of two restaurants on the same block: The one with the line outside, theoretically, has better food than the one doesn’t.

This can also be demonstrated by retweets, likes and shares on social media.  You would think that if you want something to get tweeted, you have to already have a lot of tweets.  Dan found it is actually the opposite.  Social proof and novelty, as it turns out, are very nuanced.  Example: Dan Zarrella has a good reputation.  If you see a blog post of his that has not been tweeted, you are going to tweet it so you can be one of the first to share it.

Image by Flickr user Denise (Creative Commons)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 at 9:00 am and is filed under Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.