Secrets of Social Media – David Aaker, HBR Blog

Nothing new under the sun…

David Aaker points to research conducted almost 50 years ago by Ernest Dichter into word of mouth persuasion.  Extremely relevant to the social media world of virtual mouths, Dichter found four motivations for a person to communicate about a brand:

• Product Involvement (33%) – an experience that is  novel or pleasurable
• Self Involvement (24%) – demonstrating knowledge, expertise, pioneering etc.
• Other Involvement (20%) – expressing friendship and caring
• Message Involvement (20%) – information or humour worth sharing

This goes some way to explaining why some brands excel and others don’t when they leap onto FaceBook.