5 Social Psychology Principles That Help You in Content Marketing
Where there are people there is psychology. While we may think we change over time, the reality is that we don’t really change very much in the long run at all. So the same basic social psychology principles that applied 100 years ago apply equally today. And you can use these social psychological principles to improve your content marketing.
As psychology is everywhere, it’s important to use it when putting together content. Whatever you create, some simple psychological principles can help you better target and serve your audience’s needs, and convert them to customers. And after all, that’s what content marketing is all about.
1. Well, everybody thinks that…
One of our basic needs is to belong to somewhere — likely to a group of other people who share some of our ideas and thoughts about life. Once we are members, we may change our opinion or even behaviour depending on what others think or do to avoid hanging out.
Social proof or conformity makes our life easier at some point as it allows us a cognitive shortcut. We assume that others know more about the situation than we do, so we follow their actions, even if it makes no sense, like Solomon Asch revealed in his experiment in 1951.
When it comes to content marketing, make visible what others think of your business. Use reviews, testimonials, focus on the uniqueness of your brand and the positive experiences of the clients you worked with. Featured in press or worked with great brands? Use the logos or link the relevant magazines, show what you’ve got!
2. If they say so
Talking about others’ beliefs, having the opinion of an expert of your field, a leader or a well-known person can persuade others. Use the presence of a relevant authority figure to catch more attention and gain trustworthiness.
According to the results of the famous experiment of Stanley Milgram in 1963, 65% of the participants did what they were told by an authority figure.
We tend to follow people who have power, expertise or influence thinking that they can’t be so wrong when choosing a particular product. As a result, we more likely choose those brands, too.
3. Returning that favour
You have been scrolling through that upcoming conference’s lineup millions of times. The most inspiring people from your field are gathering together to talk about the newest findings — how exciting! Your desire to have a chance going there is bigger than Mount Everest. The very next day, your colleague passes a ticket to you which he could organize through a friend, knowing how much you want this and how beneficial this knowledge would be for your career. He doesn’t accept anything in exchange, of course. But you feel you need to reciprocate someday. Not doing so may lead to social disapproval or the feeling of guilt.
This is where reciprocity lies, we feel indebted. Giving away well designed wallpapers for smartphones every month for free? Putting a lot of energy into creating a pdf guide available on your website, gratis? There you go!
Creating content that is free of charge and widely available can make your audience feel that they already have something from you. They will more likely return that by typing in their e-mail address and subscribe to your newsletter or filling out a questionnaire, moving further on your funnel, for example.
4. Want to know more?
If we experience a gap between what we think we know and what we would like to know, there is a strong emotional response, a desire to find out more. This is the main idea of George Loewenstein’s information-gap theory.
What does it mean in content creation? Raise questions or give attention grabbing headlines. By creating a “mental itch”, curiosity appears, which allows us to lead the customer through our journey, providing more and more details. Pleasing their wish to fill the gap, at the end they are hooked up by this rewarding feeling, ready to convert.
5. Something important happened? And I missed it…?
Fear of missing out is the little sibling of information-gap theory and their mother is curiosity.
Being online all the time, endlessly scrolling through Facebook and Twitter? Or waiting for a live session on Instagram in every single minute? These might be the signs of this social angst. We don’t want to miss out anything significant, we want to stay connected with others, be up-to-date and check every platform regularly.
“Don’t miss out” — by clearly vocalizing it, you get the feeling of scarcity. All the offers which are limited in time or number of products trigger this painful phenomena and make the customers get their hands on them.
A study of Eventbrite reveals that experiences start to beat real things — especially among millenials. Even if we have a physical product, it’s worth setting up an event when the launching date is coming closer, or when a new product line is about to enter the online store. Giving the feeling of an experience doesn’t mean that it should be live. It can be a Facebook event or a live session involving your audience as a group. Being together with others and waiting for something which is about to happen is much more enjoyable than doing so alone.
Take Away
Although every business and strategy is different, all of them targets people with thoughts, feelings, cognitive shortcuts. Most of them behave according to the basic social psychology principles above.
Having an insight and keeping in mind these key principles are beneficial and help you better understand how to influence your audience’s behaviour and encourage them to take an action, help them converse.
This article was originally published on Intellyo’s blog.
