contagious

# Word-of-Mouth & Virality Framework

A framework for engineering word-of-mouth and making products, ideas, and content contagious, based on Jonah Berger's research into why things catch on. Use it to design shareability into products, campaigns, and content instead of hoping for luck.

## Core Principle

**Virality is not born — it is engineered.** Products spread because they were designed — consciously or not — to be shared. Only 7% of word-of-mouth happens online; the other 93% happens in offline conversations, so virality is about the psychology of sharing, not social media mechanics. Those psychological patterns are predictable and can be engineered into anything using the STEPPS framework.

## Scoring

**Goal: 10/10.** Rate any product, campaign, content, or feature 0-10 on how many STEPPS drivers it activates and how well. Report the current score and the specific improvements needed to reach 10/10.

## STEPPS Overview

**Not a checklist — a multiplier.** Each principle independently increases sharing; the most contagious ideas activate several at once, but even one or two done well dramatically increase word-of-mouth.

| Principle | Core Question | Sharing Driver |
|-----------|--------------|----------------|
| **S — Social Currency** | Does sharing it make people look good? | Self-enhancement |
| **T — Triggers** | What in the environment reminds people of it? | Top-of-mind accessibility |
| **E — Emotion** | Does it fire up high-arousal feelings? | Physiological arousal |
| **P — Public** | Can others see people using it? | Observational learning |
| **P — Practical Value** | Is it useful enough to pass along? | Altruism and helpfulness |
| **S — Stories** | Is the brand embedded in a narrative? | Entertainment and identity |

## The STEPPS Framework

### 1. Social Currency

**Core concept:** People share things that make them look good — smart, cool, in-the-know. Make people feel like insiders and they'll spread it to boost their own image.

**Why it works:** Brands and information are social signals; people don't just share what they think — they share what makes them look good for thinking it.

**Key insights:**
- **Remarkability** — surprising, novel, or extreme things make the sharer seem interesting; "Did you know...?" is a powerful sharing trigger
- **Game mechanics** — leaderboards, badges, and status tiers create visible accomplishments people want to display
- **Exclusivity and scarcity** — secret menus and invite-only access give people "insider knowledge" to share
- **Inner remarkability** — even mundane products have a remarkable angle; it's framing, not the product

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|------------|---------|
| Content platform | Insider statistics or year-in-review | Spotify Wrapped |
| Mobile app | Shareable accomplishment cards | Duolingo streak badges |
| B2B product | Benchmarking data users want to cite | HubSpot State of Marketing report |

**Copy patterns:**
- "Most people don't know that..."
- "You're one of the first to try..."
- "You've unlocked [achievement]..."

**Ethical boundary:** Create real insider value, not false scarcity or manufactured exclusivity that breeds toxicity.

See: [references/social-currency.md](references/social-currency.md) for remarkability exercises and game mechanics design.

### 2. Triggers

**Core concept:** Top-of-mind means tip-of-tongue. Link your product to environmental cues — sights, sounds, times, routines — so everyday life keeps reminding people to talk about you.

**Why it works:** Most word-of-mouth is driven not by excitement but by whatever happens to be top-of-mind mid-conversation; a product linked to a frequent cue gets mentioned more because it's more accessible in memory.

**Key insights:**
- **Frequency beats strength** — a daily trigger (coffee) outperforms a powerful but rare one (a holiday); Kit Kat linked itself to coffee breaks
- **Habitat matters** — map where and when people encounter contexts related to your product
- **Competitive triggers** — link a competitor's moment to your own brand
- **Ongoing vs. temporary** — persistent environmental triggers sustain word-of-mouth; event triggers only spike it

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|------------|---------|
| Food/Beverage | Link to a daily habit | Kit Kat + coffee break |
| Productivity tool | Tie to a recurring workflow moment | "Every Monday standup..." |
| Financial product | Link to payday | "Every time you get paid..." |

**Copy patterns:**
- "Every time you [frequent activity], think of..."
- "Next time you [daily habit]..."
- "It's [day/time] — time for..."

**Ethical boundary:** Build genuine, helpful associations — hijacking sensitive contexts (grief, health scares) as triggers backfires.

See: [references/triggers.md](references/triggers.md) for habitat analysis and trigger design frameworks.

### 3. Emotion

**Core concept:** When we care, we share. High-arousal emotions — positive (awe, excitement, amusement) or negative (anger, anxiety) — drive sharing; low-arousal emotions (sadness, contentment) suppress it.

**Why it works:** Physiological arousal — racing heart, activated state — creates a need to share. It's activation vs. deactivation, not positivity vs. negativity.

**Key insights:**
- High-arousal drives sharing: awe, excitement, amusement, inspiration, anger, anxiety
- Low-arousal suppresses it: contentment and relaxation feel no urgency; sadness makes people withdraw
- **Awe is the most powerful sharing emotion** — feeling small before something vast or surprising spreads furthest
- **Emotional framing** — the same facts can be framed for different arousal levels; facts inform, framing motivates sharing

**Product applications:**

| Context | Application | Example |
|---------|------------|---------|
| Launch content | Engineer awe through unexpected scale or beauty | Apple keynote reveals |
| Product demos | Amusement through