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"This post originally appeared on the Buffer blog.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWhat are we really talking about when we\u2019re talking about conversions?\r\n\r\nPersuasion, right? Influence.\r\n\r\nWhen we talk about conversions, we are\u2014most of the time\u2014discussing ways we can be more persuasive, more influential. We\u2019re interested in meeting the needs of customers, fans, and followers and doing so in a way that truly speaks to them.\r\n\r\nSo how can you persuade\u2014i.e., convert\u2014better?\r\n\r\nPerhaps not surprisingly, the hacks for conversion and persuasion begin with psychology. Understanding why someone clicks or why they retweet requires you to look at the way the person is wired, the way we are all wired.\r\n\r\nTo understand persuasion and social media influence, to get at the heart of conversion and likes, it helps to understand how your audience thinks and feels. Here\u2019s a primer.\r\nThe psychological theories of influence and persuasion\r\nOne of my favorite places to learn about psychological theories is Dave Straker\u2019s Changing Minds website, which is full of theories written in layman\u2019s terms, organized neatly into specific categories and clusters for easy reference. One of those categories is persuasion, and Straker lists 10 different psychological theories that deal with how to influence others. \r\n\r\nHere is a brief snapshot of each of the 10 theories, many of which might sound familiar to you\u2014either because you\u2019ve employed them in the past or because you\u2019ve had others try them on you. For more information on any of these, click through the links to see Changing Minds\u2019 cited research and examples.\r\n\r\n1. Amplification Hypothesis\r\n\r\nWhen you express with certainty a particular attitude, that attitude hardens. The opposite is true as well: Expressing uncertainty softens the attitude.\r\n\r\n2. Conversion Theory\r\n\r\nThe minority in a group can have a disproportionate effect on influencing those in the majority. Typically, those in the majority who are most susceptible are the ones who may have joined because it was easy to do so or who felt there were no alternatives. Consistent, confident minority voices are most effective.\r\n\r\n3. Information Manipulation Theory\r\n\r\nThis theory involves a persuasive person deliberately breaking one of the four conversational maxims. These are the four:\r\n\r\n\tQuantity: Information is complete and full.\r\n\tQuality: Information is truthful and accurate.\r\n\tRelation: Information is relevant to the conversation.\r\n\tManner: Information is expressed in an easy-to-understand way and non-verbal actions support the tone of the statement\r\n\r\n4. Priming\r\n\r\nYou can be influenced by stimuli that affect how you perceive short-term thoughts and actions. Here\u2019s a really smart example from Changing Minds:\r\nA stage magician says \u2018try\u2019 and \u2018cycle\u2019 in separate sentences in priming a person to think later of the word \u2018tricycle\u2019.\r\n5. Reciprocity Norm\r\n\r\nA common social norm, reciprocity involves our obligation to return favors done by others.\r\n\r\n6. Scarcity Principle\r\n\r\nYou want what is in short supply. This desire increases as you anticipate the regret you might have if you miss out by not acting fast enough.\r\n\r\n(Note the \u201CJust for Today\u201D text in the example email below.)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n7. Sleeper Effect\r\n\r\nPersuasive messages tend to decrease in persuasiveness over time, except messages from low-credibility sources. Messages that start out with low persuasion gain persuasion as our minds slowly disassociate the source from the material (i.e., a presumably sleazy car salesman and his advice on what car is best).\r\n\r\n8. Social Influence\r\n\r\nWe are influenced strongly by others based on how we perceive our relationship to the influencer. For example, social proof on web copy is persuasive if the testimonials and recommendations are from authoritative sources, big brands, or peers.\r\n\r\n9. Yale Attitude Change Approach\r\n\r\nThis approach, based on multiple years of research by Yale University, found a number of factors in persuasive speech, including being a credible, attractive speaker; when it\u2019s important to first or go last; and the ideal demographics to target.\r\n\r\n10. Ultimate Terms\r\n\r\nCertain words carry more power than others. This theory breaks persuasive words into three categories:\r\n\r\n\tGod terms: those words that carry blessings or demand obedience/sacrifice. e.g, progress, value\r\n\tDevil terms: those terms that are despised and evoke disgust. e.g., fascist, pedophile\r\n\tCharismatic terms: those terms that are intangible, less observable than either God or Devil terms. e.g., freedom, contribution\r\n\r\n(We\u2019ve written before about the power of specific words, including the five most persuasive words in the English language: You, Because, Free, Instantly, and New.)\r\n\r\nYou might consider these 10 theories the building blocks of the persuasive techniques explained below. With this foundation of psychology in place, let\u2019s move on to some applications of these theories in your social media marketing, website planning, and content creation.\r\nHow to write for what we all crave\r\nWe all know how important food, water, shelter, and warmth are to survival. Any ideas what\u2019s next most important?\r\n\r\nThe Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow in the 1940s, shows the advancing scale of how our needs lay out on the path to fulfillment, creativity, and the pursuit of what we love most. The version of the pyramid you see below (shared by the Doorway Project) shows the five different layers of needs.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe three steps in between the physiological needs and the fulfillment needs are where marketing most directly applies.\r\n\r\n\tSafety\r\n\tBelonging\r\n\tEsteem\r\n\r\nIn Maslow\u2019s pyramid, the descriptions for these needs don\u2019t exactly have a marketing perspective to them, so it requires a little creativity to see how you can tailor your message to fit these needs. Christine Comaford, an author and expert on the subject of persuasion, has found safety, belonging, and esteem to have incredible value for our everyday work and our creative lives:\r\nWithout these three essential keys a person cannot perform, innovate, be emotionally engaged, agree, or move forward \u2026 The more we have of (these three keys) the greater the success of the company, the relationship, the family, the team, the individual.\r\nHer experience has helped her hone three phrases that are key for influence and persuasion and for creating this sense of safety, belonging, and mattering that we all need. Here they are:\r\n\r\n\t\u201CWhat if.\u201D This phrase removes ego from the discussion and creates a safe environment for curiosity and brainstorming.\r\n\t\u201CI need your help.\u201D This flips the roles of dominant and subordinate, engaging the other person and providing a transfer of power.\r\n\t\u201CWould it be helpful if.\u201D This phrase shifts the focus from the problem to the solution.\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s an example from Nick Eubanks of SEO Nick who uses the phrase \u201CI Need Your Help\u201D directly in the subject line of an email. (Come to think of it, each of these three would be fun to try as email subject lines.)\r\n\r\n\r\nNext: How to win friends and influence your audience \r\nHow to win friends and influence your audience\r\nWhen you talk about influencing people, our ears perk up at Buffer. Our company culture and values are based on a book by Dale Carnegie called How to Win Friends and Influence People.\r\n\r\nThe advice from Christine Comaford above has that familiar ring of Carnegie to it. Remove your ego. Default to happiness and positivity. Be welcoming to others.\r\n\r\nIn a lot of ways, a discussion on persuasion and influence could begin and end with Carnegie\u2019s book. Here is just a segment of the book\u2019s table of contents, filled with ideas on kindness, generosity, and partnership. (Carnegie would probably dislike that I\u2019m having you read just the table of contents\u2014he advised readers to read each chapter of his book multiple times.)\r\n\r\nWin people to your way of thinking\r\n\r\n\tThe only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.\r\n\tShow respect for the other person\u2019s opinions. Never say, \u201CYou\u2019re wrong.\u201D\r\n\tIf you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.\r\n\tBegin in a friendly way.\r\n\tGet the other person saying \u201Cyes, yes\u201D immediately.\r\n\tLet the other person do a great deal of the talking.\r\n\tLet the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.\r\n\tTry honestly to see things from the other person\u2019s point of view.\r\n\tBe sympathetic with the other person\u2019s ideas and desires.\r\n\tAppeal to the nobler motives.\r\n\tDramatize your ideas.\r\n\tThrow down a challenge.\r\n\r\nIsn\u2019t that great stuff?\r\n\r\nWe aim to include as many Carnegie principles as we can in the way that we communicate in emails, in comments, and of course on social media. Here are some examples from Twitter of how our Happiness Heroes practice friendliness, sympathy, and seeing things from someone else\u2019s perspective.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re not the only ones who love Carnegie\u2019s book, either. An article on Copyblogger by Andrew Schrage and Brian Spero broke down the specific ways that you can grow an audience and market your content based on Carnegie\u2019s principles. The full article contains 10 tips. Here are two of my favorites:\r\nAvoid misleading headlines. A staple of Carnegie\u2019s proven methods involves recognizing the importance of others. Too often we forget this and treat online audiences as easily manipulated rubes.\r\nInstead of writing clickbait headlines that aim to coerce, it\u2019s better to practice clickable headlines that work for more virtuous reasons. Digg.com aggregates the top stories from the web and delivers them with headlines that are informative and clever without being manipulative.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe second Carnegie tip from Copyblogger goes like this:\r\nSave people money. In \u201CHow to Win Friends,\u201D we learn the importance of talking about what people want and showing them how to get it.\r\nIn other words, talk about benefits instead of features.\r\n\r\nHere is a screengrab from the landing page of Keen.io, an analytics service for developers. Instead of explaining the features of the product\u2014the APIs and the SDKS\u2014Keen talks about benefits.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nWhile not as overt as the analysis on Copyblogger, Minda Zeltin, president of American Society of Journalists and Authors, wrote on Inc.com about her own experiences with persuasion and influence, referencing indirectly a lot of the attitudes expressed by Carnegie.\r\n\r\nHere are a few specific examples that Zeltin cites that deal directly with how you speak to others:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nMichael Hyatt nails these elements of persuasive speech in his communication with email subscribers. In addition to a few emails I\u2019ve received apologizing for broken links or other mistakes, Hyatt is also so kind and generous in the way he approaches his conversations. Here is an email that includes both a big thank you and some praise.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe persuasion slide: How an influential nudge leads to conversion\r\nHere\u2019s a fun way to look at persuasion: as a playground slide.\r\n\r\nThe idea comes from Roger Dooley of the blog Neuromarketing who uses the variables of a person on a slide to show how different factors affect the outcome of influence. Here\u2019s the graphic he created to explain the idea:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nEssentially, here\u2019s how it works:\r\nYou give a customer a nudge (a tweet, a blog post, a phone call, an ad).\r\nGravity, that customer\u2019s internal motivations, help move the customer down the slide.\r\nAdditional motivation that you provide (the angle of the slide) can serve to enhance the gravity. If a customer has low internal motivation, it will take a steeper angle to get him or her down the slide.\r\nFriction, seen here as the difficulty (real and perceived) in converting, causes the slide to slow down to varying degrees.\r\nThe nudge could be most anything persuasive, for example a couple of psychological theories that we outlined above. Amplification could mean that the customer is further cementing his values and attitudes as he propels down the slide. Social proof could be a stronger push down the slide, resulting in a faster conversion.\r\nRobert Cialdini\u2019s six\u00A0principles of persuasion\r\nShane Parrish of Farnam Street reads a lot of books\u2014up to 14 each month\u2013so it means something when he picks Robert Cialdini\u2019s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion as one of the most important books he\u2019s read.\r\n\r\nIn the book, Cialdini outlines six principles of persuasion, most of which will likely sound a bit familiar based on our previous discussion on psychology.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nDo any of those sound familiar? Put another way, Cialdini\u2019s list could look like this:\r\n\r\n\tReciprocation, i.e. Reciprocity Norm\r\n\tConsistency, i.e. Amplification Hypothesis\r\n\tSocial proof, i.e. Social Influence\r\n\tLiking, i.e. Social Influence (again)\r\n\tAuthority, i.e. Yale Attitude Change Approach\r\n\tScarcity, i.e. Scarcity Principle\r\n\r\nOne of the common threads from Cialdini\u2019s list is that of social. The principles of liking, authority, and social proof all deal with relationships with others: We are persuaded by those we like, by those whom we deem to be authority figures, and by the general population.\r\n\r\nHere are a few unique applications of these, as told by Cialdini and Parrish:\r\n\r\nLiking\r\nOne way people exploit this is to find ways to make themselves like you. Do you like golf? Me too. Do you like football? Me too. Although often these are genuine, sometimes they\u2019re not.\r\nLiking is similar enough to consistency that it bears pointing out the difference here. Someone might say, \u201CDo you like having more visitors to your blog?\u201D They aren\u2019t necessarily looking for a connection with you (as in Liking) but rather they\u2019re seeking Consistency. Of course you\u2019ll say yes, and in theory, you\u2019ll have a harder time backing off that statement when you are pitched a product or service later.\r\n\r\nAuthority\r\nSomething as simple as informing your audience of your credentials before you speak, for example, increases the odds you will persuade the audience.\r\nNoah Kagan does this for the each guest post he publishes at OK Dork. He writes a quick intro on how he made the connection with the guest writer and all the amazing credentials the guest writer has.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSocial proof\r\nPeople will more likely say yes when they see other people doing it too. Social poof is not all bad. It\u2019s one of the main ways we learn in life.\r\nBasecamp has a great example of social proof on their website, showing the wide variety of respected clients that use the product\u2014and doing so in a fun, approachable way.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nTwo others that are worth pointing out are consistency and scarcity.\r\n\r\nPersonally, consistency is the one I find myself most susceptible to, and I identify a lot with how Parrish describes the effect: \u201DIf you ask people to state their priorities and goals and then align your proposals with that in mind, you make it harder for people to say no.\u201D really hit home for me.\r\n\r\nParrish connects this to the IKEA effect, the way you love your IKEA furniture because you\u2019re invested in it from building it yourself.\r\n\r\nAs for scarcity, Visual Website Optimizer wrote an extensive post on all the different ways you can use scarcity to increase e-commerce sales. Have you noticed that Amazon tells people there are only a certain number of products left? That\u2019s scarcity at play.\r\n\r\n\r\nHooks: Psychology in action in your copy and on your site\r\nThroughout this post, I\u2019ve tried to highlight some good examples of the psychology of persuasion as it exists on the Web. It\u2019s great to know the theories; it\u2019s also helpful to see the techniques and applications.\r\n\r\nBushra Azhar, a persuasion strategist and founder of The Persuasion Revolution, wrote down several of her techniques that she has used to great effect in creating persuasive copy. Here is a sampling of the ways she\u2019s used to invoke positive emotions in website visitors.\r\n\r\nDisrupt then reframe\r\n\r\nYou can disrupt routine thought processes by mixing around the words and visuals that a user is used to seeing then reframing your pitch while they\u2019re still figuring out the disruption. Researchers tested this technique by pitching a product as costing $3.00 versus 300 pennies; the penny pitch was the clear winner.\r\n\r\nA unique implementation of this is on TeuxDeux\u2019s pricing page. Instead of standard names for their pricing tiers, TeuxDeux went with a disruption technique with the copy and then reframed the pitch with the pricing info below.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe key to good storytelling\r\n\r\nWe mentioned above the theory about ultimate words, and we\u2019ve written recently about the power of storytelling in your content. Azhar points out that a step beyond storytelling is making sure that you are telling the right story. She references the book Made to Stick, which talks about the three stickiest and most memorable story plots.\r\n1. The Challenge Plot: A story of the underdog, rags to riches or sheer willpower triumphing over adversity\r\n\r\n2. The Connection Plot: A story about people who develop a relationship that bridges a gap, whether racial, class, ethnic, religious, demographic or otherwise; think of the film The Blind Side\r\n\r\n3. The Creativity Plot: A story that involves someone making a mental breakthrough, solving a long-standing puzzle or attacking a problem in an innovative way\r\nThe Groove HQ blog regularly starts blog posts with a storytelling element, often using variations on The Creativity Plot to hook readers and give that nudge down the persuasion slide.\r\n\r\n\r\nOpportunities for persuasion\r\nBy now, I\u2019m sure you can see just how much psychology is involved in the art of persuasion. By extension, you can also see psychology in the social media messages and marketing tactics of some influential brands.\r\n\r\nWhen it comes to applying the principles of persuasive psychology, here are a few places you can start:\r\n\r\n\tYour calls-to-action\r\n\tYour headlines\r\n\tYour tweets and updates\r\n\tYour emails\r\n\tYour product descriptions\r\n\r\nAlmost anywhere that you have words or visuals\u2014anywhere that you create or manage content\u2014you can turn into an opportunity for persuasion.\r\n\r\nWhat places on your website and in your social media marketing have you used psychological persuasion? Which of these theories do you recognize, either in your own marketing or in the marketing of others? I\u2019d love to take this conversation further in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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