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The Psychology of Social Sharing
Marketing and psychology are very closely related, you could probably argue that they’re the same thing. Good marketers understand psychology (or at least a bit of it).
When we found this article from Canva about the psychology of social sharing, we knew we had to share it with our favorites (you guys).
The unfortunate truth about social sharing is one you already know: there is no magic formula to get tons of shares. But, there are tricks you can use to try and increase the social shares on your posts and articles. Below are the 5 reasons why people share things (according to Canva).
- Timeliness – timely news, especially shocking news, is more likely to be shared
- Emotion – posts that ignite emotion get more shares than those that don’t. This post from Buzzsumo breaks down which emotions you should aim for.
- Visual Impact – a picture is worth 1,000 words, right? Images can be better at sparking those emotions, that we mentioned above, than just words.
- Community – people love to be part of a group. That’s why you always see those “Only Things 90’s Kids Will Understand” articles with tons of shares.
- Idealization – people like to share things that make them look like who they want to be. It’s why everyone strives to be a “thought leader”.
The end of this article also drops some knowledge about how to optimize your posts for shares on certain networks.
Watch
Heinz’s Chicago Dog Sauce
People in Chicago hate ketchup on their hot dogs. Being that we’re Pittsburghers (the home of Heinz), we take offense to this, and apparently so does Heinz. They decided to do something about it by creating Chicago Dog Sauce. Spoiler alert: Chicago Dog Sauce is just regular ol’ Heinz ketchup.
The team at Heinz tricked Chicagoans into eating ketchup on their dogs by giving out a bunch of dogs with “Dog Sauce” on it. The tasters’ reactions when they find out they’re eating ketchup are full of expletives. It’s our favorite Heinz ads since Don Draper’s no-ketchup ads (which Heinz is now actually using).
“Modern marketing is about matching up with the worldview of your ideal customer.”
Brian Clark
