S
STEPPS
Social Currency
Make the sharer look informed, tasteful, insider, clever, or ahead of the crowd.
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Influence Review
Special Issue
2013
Jonah Berger
Conta
gious
Social currency
Triggers
Emotion
Public
Practical value
Stories
The Big Idea
People share what makes them look good, feel something, and carry useful proof.
Contagious is a field guide for making ideas travel through people instead of through paid media. The book's core move is practical: do not ask, "How do we get attention?" Ask, "What gives someone a reason to pass this along?"
The six STEPPS are not a checklist for gimmicks. They are lenses for diagnosing why one restaurant, product, rumor, campaign, or public-health message becomes talkable while another disappears. Spread begins when the audience gets a reward for carrying the message.
STEPPS Framework
Six editorial hooks for word-of-mouth.
Each hook gives the sharer a job: signal taste, remember at the right moment, transmit feeling, make behavior visible, help a friend, or smuggle the idea inside a story.
T
STEPPS
Triggers
Attach the idea to cues that appear naturally in everyday life.
E
STEPPS
Emotion
High-arousal feelings move people from noticing to forwarding.
P
STEPPS
Public
Make the behavior observable so imitation has something to copy.
P
STEPPS
Practical Value
Package usefulness so people can help others with low effort.
S
STEPPS
Stories
Wrap the lesson in a narrative people can retell without losing the point.
Interactive Desk
Edit an idea until it wants to travel.
Pick an ordinary seed, then toggle the STEPPS you can honestly build into it. The front page rewrites itself as your word-of-mouth architecture improves.
Current assignment
Field Notes
Make the sharer the hero, not the campaign.
Package status
Give people a way to signal taste, expertise, generosity, or insider access when they talk about the idea.
Borrow daily cues
Tie the message to a frequent environment, phrase, habit, day, or object so memory gets prompted.
Design for retelling
Reduce the idea to a vivid scene, surprising fact, or useful script that survives being repeated.
Show the behavior
If adoption is invisible, build public artifacts, rituals, badges, or defaults that others can notice.
Reader Marginalia
Core Insights
"People do not share randomly. They share because the act gives them social currency."
Practical Application
Engineer the pass-along moment.
Use these actions when an idea is good but too quiet, too private, too generic, or too hard to retell.
01
Name the sharer's reward
Before writing the message, define how repeating it makes someone look: generous, early, tasteful, funny, competent, or principled.
I'll do this
02
Attach the idea to a real-world cue
Pick one recurring trigger already in your audience's life, then rewrite so that cue reminds them to mention or use the idea.
I'll do this
03
Raise one high-arousal emotion
Replace flat benefits with awe, urgency, surprise, delight, or righteous frustration that gives people energy to pass it on.
I'll do this
06
Hide the lesson inside a story
Write the anecdote someone would tell at lunch — with the product or insight essential to the punchline.
I'll do this
04
Make adoption visible
Create a public artifact, ritual, badge, receipt, phrase, or behavior observers can notice without an explanation.
I'll do this
05
Package the useful bit
Turn practical value into a compact pass-along asset: checklist, rule of thumb, comparison, template, or timely tip.
I'll do this
07
Rewrite one line for social currency
Edit one message so sharing it makes the sharer look good for a reason you can name.
I'll do this
08
Add one practical pass-along asset
Turn today's insight into a checklist, template, or one-liner someone can forward.
I'll do this
Closing Quote
"Ideas spread when sharing them makes people feel smart, useful, moved, and part of a story worth retelling."
HourLife distillation
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Questions
Frequently asked
What is Contagious about?
Jonah Berger's six STEPPS framework for why some ideas, products, and stories spread — and how to build that virality on purpose.
What are the key takeaways from Contagious?
Readers on HourLife most often highlight ideas such as: “People do not share randomly. They share because the act gives them social currency.” “Triggers turn memory into distribution.” “High-arousal emotion is the difference between noticing and forwarding.”
Who should read Contagious?
It's a strong pick for readers exploring Marketing & Persuasion. HourLife distills its core idea into community-voted insights and one practical action worth trying.
What's one thing I can do after reading Contagious?
Name the sharer's reward — Before writing the message, define how repeating it makes someone look: generous, early, tasteful, funny, competent, or principled.
How long does it take to read the Contagious summary?
About five minutes. The HourLife summary distills Contagious into its core idea, 6 community insights, and 8 practical actions you can apply right away.
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