Why Things Catch On

by Mike James

I recently read a book titled Contagious by Jonah Berger. The book addresses how ideas spread, what drives word of mouth, and why online content goes viral. I read the book to see if it could give me some new ideas on how we can spread the gospel message. Here are some of the main points of the book that could help you to evangelize others.

The book addressed six primary reasons for contagiousness: social currency, triggers, emotion, public awareness, practical value, and stories. We will now take a closer look at each one in relation to our goal of spreading the gospel message.

Truth spreads one person at a time.

Social currency is addressed first in the book, and it pertains to how people look when they talk about a product or idea. Most people would rather look intelligent than stupid and cool instead of nerdy. Think about the idea of sharing with your neighbor that you don't celebrate Christmas. That is something most people would not quickly share due to the fact that most people celebrate Christmas in our culture. That is not likely to make you look cool. But if your neighbor was an atheist, agnostic, or Hindu, the fact that you did not celebrate Christmas might have a different impact.

It could be important to think about what is popular in our culture that you can relate to the gospel message to have more social currency with people. For example, when Charlie Kirk died, he was about to release a book that addresses the importance of the Sabbath. Since Charlie Kirk was popular with many Christians, this would have been a good time to address your Sabbath observance with other Christians who were enamored with Charlie Kirk.

A second approach is to use triggers. Triggers are stimuli that prompt people to think about specific things. Like a hamburger is a trigger for you to think about fries. So, what we try to do with some of our messages is relate to issues that may have to do with what time of year we are in. For example, Jeff Reed and I recently recorded an hour-long program on the origins of Easter. We did this early in the month of April, right before the celebration of Easter. Since Easter would be on many people's minds at this time of year, our title might have caught more hits at that time of year due to the fact more people would be thinking about that subject.

The third element to making ideas contagious is emotion. But not all emotions are the same when it comes to impacting people. In his book, Berger cited some research on what types of articles from a major newspaper were shared more often than other articles. Topics that were awe-inspiring did get shared much more than articles that were about sadness. But they looked at a range of emotions, and articles that addressed anger and anxiety were also very popular to share.

The key was not positive vs. negative emotions being more popular. So, what was it that made awe, anger, and anxiety similar? The key factor in the research was that the articles that were popular to share with others related to "high arousal" emotions vs. "low arousal" emotions. Many of the popular emotions that got shared included awe, excitement, and amusement or humor, all positive emotions with high arousal. But anger and anxiety, which are negative emotions, were just as popular. But they have high arousal. The articles that did not get shared included things dealing with contentment, which is a positive emotion, and sadness, which is a negative emotion. But both contentment and sadness are low-arousal emotions.

In thinking about this, it helps me realize why programs we do about prophecy or the end of the world would probably be more popular than programs on faith and grace. This is yet another factor to keep in mind as we try to connect people to the gospel message.

Yet another factor in making ideas contagious is getting public visibility. You have probably heard the adage, "Monkey see, monkey do." It is very true. Think about all the money spent on advertising and marketing, because if you can get the product visible, it has a greater chance of catching on.

It is much more difficult for us to spread the gospel message with hundreds of TV channels and the internet today rather than 50 years ago when we did not have cable TV and the internet. We are competing with so many more things today than in the past. But what if we could devise a way to make our message more public? What if we converted a famous person to our ideas about Scripture?

Before he died at only age 43, NFL great Reggie White began to understand the truth about the Sabbath and Holy Days. What if Reggie had become a CGI elder? Someone with that kind of public clout may have led more people to the truth we are trying to promote. Is there any way we can lead a famous person to the truth?

People like to pass along practical news that everyone could use. This is the fifth point made in the book we read. Sales techniques take this factor into account. Often, people will shop only when there is a sale or when they see a sale price on an item. You have probably also seen this technique in infomercials where a price for the product is given, and then you are told another item will be added to the purchase at no extra cost. They also may say this opportunity is for a limited time, so order now. These buzzwords and techniques are used because they do make a difference in convincing some to buy.

In thinking of this concept of "practical value," I wonder if God had this in mind pertaining to the second resurrection. In trying to save as many as possible, did God know that most will only commit when they are sure they are getting value from something? Perhaps the unique nature of that doctrine is something we should emphasize more in conversations.

The final idea to help make an idea contagious is to use stories. Lots of research has found that conveying information through stories is much more impactful on the hearer than just providing facts, figures, and a lecture format. Think about the Bible itself and its use of stories. Why are movies and songs so popular? They are all telling a story. The story of why you believe what you believe today might have a better chance of impacting someone than reciting proof texts to someone.

So, the next time you think about evangelizing someone, think about using social currency, triggers, emotion, public visibility, practical value, and stories.

Source: Contagious: Why Things Catch On, by Jonah Berger (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013).