How To Make Your Message Go Viral

Word of mouth is responsible for 93% of messages passing from one person to another. Everyday, Americans engage in 16 word of mouth conversations where they say something positive or negative about a showroom, product, service or person. We recommend restaurants and movies we've watched to coworkers, tell family members about a great sale and recommend babysitters to our neighbors. American consumers mention brands 3 billion times a day. Our mentioning of brands is about as involuntary as is our breathing. We do it so often, we don't even thing about it.

In his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger notes that there are six key steps to creating viral messages.

Step 1: Social currency.

If we want our customers to talk about our showroom, we need to craft messages that help them achieve desired impressions. We need to make our customers feel like that have insider information and provide them with visible symbols that they want to show others, because it makes them look good.

Step 2: Triggers.

When you mention peanut butter you almost always think of jelly. Link the services and products in your showroom to cues in the environment. How can your showroom trigger a response and make a connection?

Step 3: Emotion.

A new kitchen is not about countertops, cabinets and appliances. It's about how it makes your clients feel every time they set foot in the space. People share emotions.

Step 4: Public visibility.

Things that are easily observable make them easy to imitate, and that makes them more likely to be popular. Trip Advisor has been monumentally successful because people use others' experiences to make decisions. In your showroom, highlight products that were used in different types of projects and applications. Write product reviews to help your customers make decisions. Have your designers designate a favorite product and explain why they like it.

Step 5: Practical value.

What information can you share that is useful? The secret behind Marcus Sheridan's success was to answer the questions his customers asked most often. Practical value is reducing stress, troubleshooting problems and being accountable. Help others helps them to share what you did with others.

Step 6: Stories.

You need to embed your projects with stories and ideas that others want to tell. The story needs to be valuable and covey a message so integral to the narrative that people can't tell the story without it.