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How to Leverage The Power of Emotions to Improve

Your Social Media Marketing
Written by Neil Patel on June 14, 2016

Do you know that we can use 10,000 facial variations to express a wide variety of subtle
emotions?

Humans are inherently emotional beings. They like to feel and, when they do, they also like to
share it with their friends and family. That’s the most fundamental reason why social media
thrives.

But, there are some kinds of posts that get shared a lot more than others. In a study of 1.6
million organic social posts on Twitter, Facebook and Google+, Social Flow found that 99% of
posts receive close to zero engagement.
But, a select few quickly go viral. The underlying reason is because they instigate the reader
to feel a particular emotion strongly. Maybe it’s making your audience jubilant. Maybe it
makes them sad or even angry.

You should follow these 9 things to improve your social media marketing.

The bottom line is that people share your content only if it strikes a chord with them and their
decisions are emotional (not rational). So, in this post, let’s explore the types of emotions that
you should leverage or avoid, when sharing on social media. Here goes #1.
1. Happy content gets shared faster and wider than sad content

Happiness is hard-wired into us, but how does it spread on social media?

Researchers at Cornell University partnered with Facebook to conduct a study on 500,000

users. They altered the amount of positive and negative content appearing in the news feed of
a user.

Guess what they found?

Emotional synchronization – Users that saw more positive feeds also published more positive
posts and lesser negative posts. The opposite was also found to be true.

Seeing the demand for good news, websites like good.news have taken shape. Instead of
sensationalizing issues and reporting negative news like traditional media outlets do, they
view society’s challenges through a lens of progress and possibility.
Indeed, the wide positive emotion spreading isn’t limited to social media. In a 6 month study
on 7,500 articles conducted at the University of Pennsylvania:

Researchers found that positive and intellectually challenging articles were preferentially
emailed by people over those with negative themes.

In their study of viral content, Fractl also found that content layered with and related to
happiness was top drawer for encouraging sharing.
As a brand, you should leverage happiness, because it’s an opportunity to affect the well-
being of your fans. Simultaneously, your brand name reaches further and wider. Here are a
couple of examples of how to leverage happiness while posting on social media.
1. Amuse your fans with your wit – Laughter is a great tool to connect with your audience. If
you’ve got a good understanding of the kind of humor that your social media followers would
like, then you’ll get terrific social media engagement.

Jokes generally work well on Twitter and get retweeted/liked a lot.

In the example below, Chipotle uses its wit to engage its followers.
A light-hearted conversation goes a long way in making a point about your product. Look how
Taco Bell uses a humorous survey to throw light upon its $ 1 breakfast.
Occasionally, I also share fun photos on my Facebook page. They ensure that people don’t
feel that a robot is managing the page. Such posts are liked by my audience and they receive
fantastic engagement.
2. Share your inspirational achievements – If your fans have liked you (or followed you) on
social media, then they want to hear from your brand. So, don’t feel weird in posting about
yourself.

Remember, it’s for the greater good to inspire your audience anyway. The trick, though, is to
not share every small breakthrough of your company and overtly promote yourself.

A great example of this kind of content is my post about the “Commendation Medal from the
Cambodian Government” that I received for building schools.
Another brilliant example of a social media influencer sharing inspirational content is musician,
DJ Khaled. He has built an engaged audience of a whooping 2 million on Snapchat, by sharing
his “keys to success” through Snapchat’s 24 hour valid stories.
2. Invoking feelings of awe can surprise you with the number of shares you
can get

In their analysis of the 10,000 most shared articles across the web, OkDork found that the most
popular emotion they evoked was ‘awe,’ at 25%.
Why does evoking a feeling of surprise in your audience work so well?

It’s because the human brain is wired to get a kick out of surprises. In a water or fruit juice
squirting study on the mouths of 25 volunteers, the brain’s pleasure center activated (due to
rush of feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine) when the squirting took on an unpredictable
pattern.
“That suggests people are designed to crave the unexpected.”

So, don’t only craft and share positive content. Post remarkable content that surprises your
audience with its value or entertainment. And, people won’t be able to help commenting
on and sharing it. Let me share 3 examples of awe-inspiring content.

1. Elegant list posts – The fourth most shared content piece from The New York Times, last
year, was the list article “52 Places To Go In 2015 (522,000 shares).”
It achieved 500k shares, because it contained beautiful pictures of places you can travel to.

2. Create a resource that’s insanely valuable to your audience – Have you read the link
building tactics compiled by Jon Cooper from Point Blank SEO?
The guide contains hefty details and was a clear standout at the time that Jon created the post.
With the kind of value it provides – number of tactics, sorting by time available/link
value/dependency on other sources, it was a clear cut winner.

The post has generated over 4k shares (twitter counter is no longer working). I bet many
marketers would have shared the post, even without reading it, because they found it so awe-
inspiringly valuable.
And, it stands at the number one spot for the high-volume and competitive keyword “link
building tactics.”

The post had its great run, because it was insanely epic. I’ve shared 13 more examples of such
epic posts here.
Note that the definition of epic varies
from time to time. Long form posts are
now the norm and even 7000 word posts
might end up ignored. So, perform a
competition check before investing time
in crafting such an epic post. Here’s my
guide to writing epic viral content.

3. Surprise your readers with your timing

– Do you follow the Super Bowl?

Even if you don’t, there are high chances

you’ve heard about this viral tweet that
Oreo sent out when the lights went out in
New Orleans during the Super Bowl.

The tweet read. “Power Out? No Problem” accompanied by a hero image stating that “You can
still dunk in the dark.”

Power out? No problem. pic.twitter.com/dnQ7pOgC

— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 4, 2013

The tweet is defined as an iconic moment in social media advertising history. Sure, it was
clever content, but most importantly, it was timed perfectly.

And, that tweet, that appeared so spontaneous, was 18 months in the making.

Side Note: Packaging your post with a delicious headline is a sure fire way to get clicks. But,
ensure that you don’t overpromise and under-deliver with your content. Such empty
engagement will only hurt your brand’s reputation in the long run.

A couple of examples of media houses that have built humongous traffic by using sharing
triggers in their content are – BuzzFeed and UpWorthy. Their clickbait titles earn them
tremendous attention, but many times they end up receiving flak from their audience.

3. Making your audience angry or fearful will trigger higher engagement…

but use it sparingly and wisely

High arousal emotions activate our nervous system and get us fired-up. That’s why we share
content that inspires awe.

But, there’s another high-arousal emotion…

Anger.

Once you’re in this state, sharing on social media can provide you a kind of closure and
release you from it.
A study, conducted on 70 million tweets, posted on Weibo (China’s social network) in 2010
also support this theory. Researchers at Beihang University found that anger can spread
widely and quickly on the network.

Fear, on the other hand, has been one of the most pivotal tools for marketers. By addressing
the pain points of your audience, you can motivate them to take action. A classic example of
how fear manifests itself and fuels social media usage is FOMO.
In a study by My Life, 56% of users confessed to the fear of missing out an important update or
news. So, they kept logging back onto social media to check their feeds.
Now, let me quickly show you a couple of ways to leverage these emotions.

1. Stir a controversy – A great way of getting engagement from your followers is taking sides
and requesting a healthy debate. The downside, though, is that discussions elevate very
quickly on social media. So, ensure that you’ve got sufficient data and proof to make your
point.

A great example of a social figure that likes to create a controversy is Donald Trump. He
doesn’t mince his words and, in being divisive, he ends up finding a tribe that support his
views.
His posts receive millions of interactions on social media and it keeps on growing.
Derek, from Social Triggers, also incited anger from certain “content is king” believers with this
post.
It made people so angry that not only did they comment on and share the post – they even
wrote follow-ups and linked to the post.

2. Growth Hack using FOMO – One of the major reasons why fans like and follow you on social
media is because they want you to reward them. So, offer exclusive products and gifts – just
for your social media audience.

For example, Heinz Ketchup made the first 3000 bottles of a special, limited edition
flavor available only to its Facebook fans.
4. Content evoking sadness can also occasionally make an impact

Sadness, or in particular, nostalgia, has

been one major way for marketers to
attract their audience’s attention.

But, have we overdone it? Since it’s low-

arousal, does it even work in getting more
shares of your content?

Sure, sadness is one of the least existent

emotions in viral content. It will perform
worse than other happy, positive and
even angry emotions.

But, as per research on 65,000 articles on

two news sites by Fractl, by striking a balance between arousal and dominance, you can
inspire and surprise your audience. So, even negative, low-arousal emotion evoking images
can go viral.

Here are a couple of examples.

1. Provoke thoughtful reactions – The campaign “Like a Girl” has a negative connotation. The
campaign’s theory is that we limit and insult girls. Yet, the videos have garnered millions of
views and thoughtful comments from women.
2. Yes, there is something like a “beautiful” sadness – Have you ever watched the YouTube
web series “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows”?

Every episode describes a unique and strangely powerful emotion. The narrator, John Koenig,
manages to portray beauty and admiration, even from sorrows and negative emotions in life.

With over 100,000 views on every episode and over 180,000 subscribers, it’s safe to say that
sadness can be portrayed beautifully and it can go viral.

Conclusion
At our core, we’re emotional beings. We cannot make a decision with pure logic – so try to
evoke an emotion for enticing sharing
from your audience.

Some emotions work better than others

for achieving virality. The studies I
showed you in this article are only good
starting points. Many of them have even
contradicted each other, because they
were performed on different sets of
audiences, in different contexts and on
different networks.

The preferences of your audience will

vary. I would recommend that you be wary of how you use controversy to evoke anger. It’s a
lethal weapon that can hurt your social media marketing.

If you’re searching for content formats for integrating emotional elements into your content
stream, here’s a nice chart from Buzzsumo.
Have you used emotions to entice your audience and achieved great results? Let me know in the
comments below.

Share
 210
 134
 42
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From “aha” to “oh shit”, I’m sharing everything on my journey to
100,000 monthly visitors.
I’m learning a lot and so will you.

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 About Neil Patel
The Wall Street Journal calls him a top influencer on the web, Forbes says he is one of the top
10 marketers, and Entrepreneur Magazine says he created one of the 100 most brilliant
companies. He was recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President
Obama and a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 35 by the United Nations.

WHO IS NEIL PATEL?

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Comments (8)

June 14, 2016 at 12:29 PM

Neil Patel
Hey Everyone,
I forgot to mention that I recently released a webinar that shares my7 best marketing tactics.

Would love to know what you think...it's filled with over 60 minutes of marketing tactics... all for free.

Click here to check it out. Let me know what you think. :)

And if you still need more help growing your business after you watch the webinar, contact me and I will
personally help you.

June 14, 2016 at 11:43 PM

Abhyudaya Tripathi
Fantastic article Neil. Your article has made the picture pretty clear on the way readers react to your post
when you include a psychological factor.

I want you to put some lights on oversharing as if my post didn’t get good responses from the community
in the first time then should I repeat the action?

What do you think?

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 11:21 AM

Neil Patel
I would listen to the feedback and make the changes accordingly

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 12:48 AM

Vidian Media
Great article! using emotions on social media makes your message more relevant and people engage more.

REPLY
 June 15, 2016 at 11:23 AM

Neil Patel
That’s the dimension you want to penetrate through

REPLY

June 15, 2016 at 11:24 AM

The Crazy Thinkers

Hi Neil,

i am planning to promote my blogging site into social media and my 1st choice is facebook but can you
please suggest other social media platform for paid marketing. it will be great help if you assist me with
proper direction.

REPLY

June 17, 2016 at 10:03 PM

Carolyn Chang
Thanks for the great article, Neil! This article definitely has a lot of really good insights, things that I can
implement into my company’s social media strategy. Which emotion do you use to get the most
engagement out of your audience? Thank you in advance!

REPLY

June 18, 2016 at 1:32 PM

Neil Patel
Curiosity, excitement, sometimes even wonder! It varies though, depends on the post

REPLY
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