First, notice the low cost of liking. Unlike a brand, the person isn’t committing to liking much other than something consistent with their personality. This is a great way of building a community on facebook. Don’t ask users to like Keebler, ask them to like fudge stripe cookies, or just cookies. Still, have a page for your brand, but similar to a mobile app, don’t be afraid to have multiple pages for more focused engagement. In the case of Being Conservative, persons are liking the fact that they are conservative and consequently are being marketed to quite successfully.

The motivation for showing their support for conservative views already exists. This page offers a trigger to like being conservative with a very low cost. That is, it’s very easy to do. Once the user likes the page, the organization continues to produces content that is consistent with their users’ motivations and with a low cost. They consistently ask the users to like that content thus putting a trigger in the user’s path. Combined with some of the influence patterns found below, they have developed a strong persuasive architecture.

Persuasion on facebook isn’t new. I was on the review board for Dr. Fogg’s Psychology of Facebook book in 2008 that included many articles on this very subject. However, it’s rare that you see explicit uses of persuasion. The following patterns on Being Conservative are straight out of Dr. Cialdinin’s Influence: Science and Practice.

Notice (1) that the organization is putting out a message that they know their fans will like. Other times they encourage their fans to like it and they generate tens of thousands of likes and thousands of comments. However, those don’t directly translate into a ROI. But using the principle of commitment and consistency they ask the fans, one day later, to purchase a shirt that has that very message on it.

This pattern has been found to be highly effective. In 1966 psychologists Jonathan Freedman and Scott Fraser published a study where they asked homeowners to put obnoxiously large and unsightly sign in their yard that said “Drive Carefully.” Understandably the conversion (or compliance) rate was rather low, 17 percent. However, the researchers were able to get the conversion rate up to 76 percent by changing one simple variable. For the group that converted at 76 percent the researchers simply added an additional call to action a couple of weeks earlier. This time the call to action has a much lower cost. They asked the homeowners to put a small sticker in their window that said “Be a safe driver.” Almost all of the homeowners asked, agreed to put the sticker in their window. Then, two weeks later when asked to put the obnoxious sign in their yard, the researchers were able to attain the 76 percent conversion rate. This commitment and consistency principle has been shown in other studies and is clearly seen in the persuasion patterns in Being Conservative’s facebook strategy.

(2) “TODAY ONLY” for the t-shirt sales? Why would the organization limit t-shirt sales to one day? According to the scarcity principle it’s to trigger an action. Namely, the purchase of the shirt. And in conjunction with the commitment and consistency principle it allows the organization to leverage this principle while the fan’s previous consistent act, liking the post with the same quote, is still fresh in their minds. While the Internet seemingly makes anything you want available at any time of the day, the scarcity principle is often employed by online marketers to trigger an action. It’s a powerful and consistently fruitful persuasion pattern.

Also, notice (3) that they are using an image that many conservatives hold in high regard. Here, the organization is implementing a strategy that instantiates the liking principle and the authority principle. Research shows that persons are more likely to perform a call to action when it’s requested by or associated with someone who is attractive, similar to them, and/or familiar. By leveraging authority figures, social media friends, and other conservatives (page fans), Being Conservative is able to implement this persuasion pattern in a big way.

Persuasion patterns are often implemented unintentionally for surprising gains. However, a well designed user experience should have conscious patterns in place to help the users act in a way that’s consistent with their motivation. It’s our job as user experience designers to understand our users’ motivations and to provide them with the triggers that best allow them to act in accordance with those motivations.

For decades psychologists and self help writers have focused on motivating people to do things like save money or lose weight, but it turns out most often it’s the case that you cannot change someone’s motivation. Instead of focusing on one requirement for behavior, i.e. motivation, BJ Fogg gives us a behavior model that helps us understand the role of motivation and allows us to understand how to alter a person’s behavior. To do this we need to place low cost triggers in the path of the person. Costs include cost in time, resources, effort, etc.

Why are established platforms good for marketing campaigns?
Established platforms like facebook, youtube and mobile devices like iPhone and iPad provide lower cost to the user for initiating behaviors than, for example, a behavior to visit your website. The cost is lower because the user doesn’t have to commit as much to performing just that behavior. Of course this only work if the user has a routine of going to that platform.

Consider an offline example. Terrence receives two ads in his mailbox. The first is for a product from a new producer of energy drinks at Wal-Mart where Terrence goes every week to purchase groceries. The other ad is for the same new energy drink, but at Sweet Bay grocery stores; a store Terrence has never visited. The cost for Terrence in the first ad is lower, because (1) he has a routine of going to Wal-Mart so he does not need as much motivation to go as he would to a new store and (2) if he doesn’t end up purchasing the item, the trip might still be salvaged since he knows about other purchases he can make there. The 2nd point is important because if you’re trying to get a person to make a purchase of a new product at an unfamiliar store, they have to commit to making the purchase before leaving the house, whereas if the place is familiar the commitment doesn’t need to be as strong. They could do other things while they’re there.

Bringing this back online, consider the user who gets an email for a new product or service and the email (or notification) comes from either facebook or the email comes directly from the vendor. Which email is likely to be opened (behavior 1)? Which email is likely to be acted on (behavior 2)? Why? It’s not just the familiarity, but the low cost in acting on it, i.e. the user can do other things on facebook and this call to action might even be a good excuse to do that. In addition, the user already has a routine that includes acting on emails from facebook.

Many companies large and small are already on facebook. If you’re not you probably should be. If you are, be sure to consider the likelihood you’ll get your users to perform the desired behaviors by leveraging the platforms. For instance, suppose you’re launching a new feature for your interactive marketing strategy. Should it be hosted on your website or your facebook page or a mobile device? It depends on your users, the desired behaviors and other factors like the underlying technology, but understanding how to alter a user’s behavior in a desired way is an important factor in the decision to leverage one platform over another.