Contagious: How to Build Word of Mouth in the Digital Age Paperback – 16 Jan. 2014

Easy to read and understand, the concepts are broken down and use of practical examples makes it an enjoyable read

Just finished reading this book and I have to say it's one of the better books I have read on the subject and creating viral content. The examples are great and varied from industry to industry, it's easy to grasp and makes your brain tick with What If questions, especially if you have your own business, ideas start flowing. Contagious gives a good overview of what to and not to do. I will definitely read it again at some point and will use it as one of the main points of reference when creating content.

I believe that the book provides a very helpful explanation of potential ways to market products and services, so that people become aware of them.

If you want become viral, this is for sure the book you need to read, there is everything you need to know inside to become that successful content creator.

Did you know that a glass ball will bounce higher than a ball of rubber? Or that kangaroos cannot walk backward? (p. 38) You might say that such general knowledge trivia are well, trivial, but Berger does not think so.Professor Berger has set himself the task of discovering what it is that makes some things go viral – why it is that we share certain things but not others. The facts above come from under the Snapple caps. Snapple introduced them in 2002 – sales soared!But why? Berger’s answer is that we love to share things (such as weird facts) because that make us look good – it is a kind of ‘Social currency’. He has identified 6 key ingredients to ‘virality’: Social currency / Triggers / Emotion / Public / Practical value / Stories.There is a great deal here that we can use. Clearly, if students like something enough to share it, that could potentially make excellent teaching material. Strange facts (e.g. the QI books), lateral thinking problems, inspirational quotes can all make great ‘Social currency’.Some elements such as ‘Stories’ or ‘Emotion’ are obvious, but what about ‘Practical value’? Well, I like to give my teenage students diverse reading material but there is one book (‘Body Language’ by Pease) which they almost never return – they buy it off me! Why? Because it says how you can tell if someone likes you. What would happen if we gave our classes more stuff like this?‘Triggers’ (ch. 2) is a fascinating concept. The idea is that we are more likely to do something if there are things around us that remind us of it – things that ‘trigger’ a particular thought. Berger and Fitzsimons got students to eat 25% more fruit and veggies by using this trick (p. 72). Could we do the same and get our students to study more?In the chapter on ‘Public’ Berger mentions an amazing movement (‘Movember’ – p. 138) which since 2007 has helped raise more than $ 174 million for victims of cancer worldwide. How did they do it? Well, they encourage male supporters to grow a moustache for a month! :-) People ask them why they have ruined their looks, they reply and the movement gains momentum – brilliant! (Moral 1: Costly, public commitment makes people do things – and the same goes for students! Moral 2: Incongruity works wonders! Could we use this in class perhaps?)OK – I have saved a little puzzle for the end. Q: Imagine you are about to open your Apple notebook which is in front of you. Is the logo the right way up? It should be, right? Wrong! Now open the laptop. That’s right. Now it is the right way up – for all the others to see! (Public! – p. 127).

I love the concept of creating content that is easy to talk about and Berger breaks it down into 6 factors that contribute to creating really sharable content. These ideas are really well explained and make intuitive sense, so after the intro I couldn't wait to get into the meat of what makes these points tick and how they can be used.Berger is passionate about having testable scientific rigour to underlie his points. This was another great hook for me - things should be proven, repeatable and solid. Sadly this is where the book falls flat - because his examples are often naive or just poor science that fails to deliver on his premise.For example, he mentions an experiment to support the idea that people like to talk about themselves (I think we can all agree that people love to talk without the need for an experiment to prove it, but hey ho). The unforgivable sin is that he chooses an experiment that doesn't show that. The test asks people to take a paid survey and at some point they are given a few minutes of boring downtime. They can choose to wait it out, or they can choose to take less money for the survey but be allowed to talk about themselves during that downtime instead. The paper's authors claim that because their participants will sacrifice money to talk, it means that we find talking about ourselves so beguiling that we'll give up money to do it. All it really proves is that people will pay to avoid boredom. To back that up, many free to play videogames base their entire income on forcing people to wait or pay money to skip the wait. People find that BOREDOM abhorrent enough that they will pay to avoid it - making the game company millions of dollars. So this experiment doesn't back up his point, instead it makes you think he's trying to obsfucate the truth using SCIENCE. The book and his points are worse off for it.A few pages later Berger says things should be gamified with badges because people like to have a symbol that proves they have accomplished something - and then they share it. That's fine if it's a national medal or a Nobel prize, but digital badges passed beyond saturation point years ago. My friends' Facebook walls are clogged with foursquare and candy crush badges (and whatever else the latest games are posting on their behalf). Rather than wanting to share badges and pass them on, we're becoming hyper-aware of not spamming our friends with crap - because we know how irritating they are when they clog up our social feeds. This in itself falls foul of one of his own points - people share things that other people will think is cool to give them social capital. This point is awesome and really rings true, but it directly contradicts people's real behaviour when it comes to badges.The book is chock so full of these contradictions and shlock science that all the good stuff gets lost.

Love the little stories that are used as examples, I couldn't stop sharing them around my peers. I'm not an expert on social media or even word of mouth marketing but I ve tried my fair amount during my time at university. This book is well researched, accessible and just an eye opener when it comes to today's practices of guerrilla marketing. If you want to start a small business or even just a professional YouTube or Instagram account I'd suggest starting with this one. One because as said multiple times word of mouth marketing is free and two because as a book it says something different in comparison to all the 'social media gurus' who claim that you can do any kind of business just by sharing, liking and posting at particular times during the day.