Zarella’s Hierarchy of Contagiousness – Review

Social Media Science sounds like a fairy tale, but Dan Zarella proves otherwise in his new book on contagious ideas. He focuses on social media because they are a \”petri dish\” for ideas, but the principles that he is able to extract from social media metrics can be applied to all of your ideas. This short book will tell you the best ways to spread your ideas and make them more contagious. 

The author starts off by building his framework on three points. For your ideas to be more contagious, you must:

1. Increase the number of people exposed to your content.

2. Create more attention-grabbing content.

3. Include powerful calls to action.

Following this, the author provides relevant data to prove his claims. This information is invaluable, and very helpful to anyone who uses social media at all. For instance:

Do you know if it helps or hurts to call yourself a guru (or author, speaker, founder)?

Do larger groups or more active small groups spread ideas faster?

Are negative or positive ideas more contagious?

Should you talk about yourself?

How often should you share content?

What is the best day and time to attract \”retweeters\”?

What is the best time to blog for your click rate? For comments?

All of the answers to these questions, and many more, are in this book. Each section is short and to the point, no more than four paragraphs and a visual graph of the data that backs it up. This is a book that will pay for itself easily, and the information contained in it is valuable to every business, author, and marketer. Highly Recommended.