The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You

"What was it about a piece of content - an article, a picture, a video - that took it from simply interesting to interesting and shareable? What pushes someone not only to read a story but to pass it on?"

In this The New Yorker article, Maria Konnikova explores these questions as reflected in the research of two professors at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (United States): Jonah Berger and Katherine Milkman. Together, they analysed just under 7,000 articles that had appeared in the New York Times in 2008, between August 30th and November 30th, to try to determine what distinguished pieces that made the list of most-emailed articles in that newspaper. (Editor's note: click here to read an abstract of this research article, which is available by subscription only.) After controlling for online and print placement, timing, author popularity, author gender, length, and complexity, Berger and Milkman found that 2 features predictably determined an article's success: (i) how positive its message was and how much it excited its reader. Articles that evoked some emotion did better than those that evoked none; happy emotions outperformed sad ones (e.g., an article titled "Wide-Eyed New Arrivals Falling in Love with the City") outperformed sad ones ("Web Rumors Tied to Korean Actress's Suicide"). (ii) How arousing each emotion was also made a difference: If an article made readers extremely angry or highly anxious - stories about a political scandal or new risk factor for cancer, for example - they became just as likely to share it as they would a feel-good story.

Berger's additional research (documented in his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On) has identified 4 additional viral-promoting factors: (iii) social currency: something that makes people feel that they are not only smart but "in the know"; (iv) a memory-inducing trigger (e.g., stories that stick in your mind because they are bizarre); (v) the promise of practical value - as Berger says, "[i]t allows people to feel like there’s a nice packet of useful information that they can share with others."; (vi) the quality of the story itself - "People love stories. The more you see your story as part of a broader narrative, the better."

As Konnikova suggests, the irony is that "the more data we mine, and the closer we come to determining a precise calculus of sharing, the less likely it will be for what we know to remain true. If emotion and arousal are key, then, in a social application of the observer effect, we may be changing what will become popular even as we're studying it." Berger echoes this: "If everyone is perfectly implementing the best headline to pass on, it’s not as effective any more. What used to be emotionally arousing simply isn’t any longer."