In my recent content strategy post I told you that I would be writing up some articles on how to promote the hell out of the content you had created.<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s important for anyone involved in starting a blog<\/a> and creating content to understand what will motivate someone to share your content and when they are most inclined to do so you can develop the next step in your strategy.<\/p>\n Most marketers have a good grasp of the Extrinsic Motivators (price, features, benefits) of a product or a piece of content but we often struggle with the Intrinsic Motivators (how does the product align to a person\u2019s feelings or goals). People are thinking feelers not feeling thinkers.<\/p>\n What do we know about People?<\/b><\/p>\n A very recent example of this is the latest video from Chris Gilchrist<\/a>, which has been picked up by various sources across the web such as Buzzfeed and Knowyourmeme.<\/p>\n The reason this particular post has been successful is it plays to many of the factors I listed above as it is emotive, funny, timely and highly visual.<\/p>\n There have been a number of scientific studies into understanding why content goes viral or the motivations people have to share a specific piece of content.<\/p>\n A large part of what compels people to share can be brought back to Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs. If our most basic of needs are satisfied we will start to satisfy the higher levels within the hierarchy, and it is no surprise that our desire to share information with others comes from the top 2 tiers.<\/p>\n One of the studies I am going to cite in this blog post is The New York Times\u2019 Psychology of Sharing<\/a> whitepaper \u2013 which I highly recommend you download. The study was an intensive process carried out in three phases:<\/p>\n The study determined that above all else, sharing is part self-fulfilment and part relationship building – which isn\u2019t really surprising seen as, back in 1966\u00a0Ernest Dichter\u2019s study<\/a>\u00a0on \u201cWord of Mouth\u201d reveals\u00a064%\u00a0of sharing is about the sharer, themselves.<\/p>\n The NYTimes study split the motivations down into 5 main categories<\/p>\n The study also identifies six personas that share content. These personas can be\u00a0defined by their emotional motivations, desired presentation of self and how valuable it is to the individual be the first to share.<\/p>\n\n
\nA Goodbye Song for Google Reader<\/b><\/p>\nMaslow\u2019s Hierarchy of Needs<\/h3>\n
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