I had the opportunity to study psychology for a couple of years in university. I always liked it. It’s incredibly fascinating to me to “get under the hood” so to speak and see what it is that drives humans to behave as we do.
As a social media marketer, a lot of my job is linked to psychology. If I share something via one of my social channels, I’m taking a risk that it will be accepted, loved, “liked,” and engaged with. Sometimes I’m dead on. But sometimes I’m totally wrong. It really is often experimentation.
Getting something to “go viral” is every social media marketers dream. It’s hard to do, though–partly because there is an element of magic involved that no one can define. That’s what makes it so hard.
There are, however, some psychological factors that may impact how your post lands, however, and that is the topic of today’s infographic: The Psychology of Social Sharing.
One thing we know for sure is, if you can create an emotional reaction (anger, happiness, etc), the person will most likely engage with you (and it). Additionally, people just like to be entertained. You make them laugh, give them a surprising twist, there’s a good chance they will share your content, because they want others to have the same reaction. Speaking of others, relationship is incredibly important when it comes to social sharing. If someone sends me an email about something they are working on, and that person is a good friend, there’s a very high chance I will share that info on my social feeds. Inspiration is another kind of update that will most likely get shared. Self-perception is also a huge factor– we want people to see us in a certain way, as a certain kind of person, so we will share things that encourage that world view. Finally, we will share things for a good cause.
So, the next time you go to build a FB status update or a tweet, keep some of these factors in mind, and see if they increase your engagement numbers.
Infographic courtesy of CoSchedule