Understanding Invisible Influences With Jonah Berger

The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior

Jonah Berger, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Contagious, is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to spending over 15 years studying how social influence drives products and ideas to catch on, he’s published dozens of articles in top-tier academic journals, consulted for Fortune 500 companies—and he just released a new book that’s already joined the bestseller ranks: Invisible Influence.

Without even realizing it, our everyday decisions are often deeply influenced by other people’s behaviors. Don’t just take Jonah’s word for it; he’s got the data to back it up. Jonah integrates his research with anecdotes and stories that explain how outside forces shape our cultural norms every day. He’s smart. He’s succinct. And you’re going to love what he has to say.

Tune in as we discuss the subtle, often even hidden factors that shape behavior and how you can use them to run your own influence campaigns, adjust your marketing efforts, and more.

In This Episode

• How Jonah Berger defines influence
• What factors and which people shape our behavioral norms
• How mimicry increases your influence over others
• The importance of measuring the right things to understand influence
• The biggest influencer marketing challenge that brands face
• The data you’ll need to launch your own influencer campaign

Quotes From This Episode

[tweet “”The art and the science [of influence] are both important.” —@j1berger”]

“Communities shape the norms that come to frame our behavior. But then our behavior reciprocally goes back and shapes those community norms and affects the next generation of people in the community.” —@j1berger

“We all have influence in our own unique ways—whether we have 10 million friends and followers or we’re just the person in the neighborhood people go to for information about bikes.” —@j1berger

“Followers or friends are a passive measure of how engaged people are, how engaged an audience is. But we need to think about more active measures… are they engaging with your message today?” —@j1berger

[tweet “”Trust is extremely important… Consumers want brands or experiences that are authentic, that feel real and organic rather than things that are fake.” —@j1berger”]

“I think one of the biggest challenges for brands is to not just be product- or service-focused but to be customer-focused… At the end of the day what does the person that’s buying from me or working with me actually want or need?” —@j1berger

“Sometimes companies do research where they know what answer they want to find, and sure enough they find that answer. The best market research is when you don’t know what you want to find. You just want to find the truth.” —@j1berger

Resources

Jonah Berger on Twitter (@j1berger), Facebook, and LinkedIn

Contagious: Why Things Catch On

Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces That Shape Behavior

A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashion, and Culture Change by Stanley Lieberson

The Mind Club: Who Thinks, What Feels, and Why It Matters by Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray