Pre-suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade

Speed Summary by  PAUL MARSDEN 

Author: Robert Cialdini

• Publisher: Random House Books
• Publication: 2016

The most valuable commodity of the 21st century is attention.

Although attributed to investor and philanthropist Esther Dyson, this insight is subject of Robert Cialdini’s new book Pre-suasion. ‘Pre-suasion’ is the art of influence by capturing and channeling attention. Rather than seek to change what people think (difficult), change what they think about instead by directing their attention (easy). The changed focus of our attention primes, anchors, frames and sets the agenda for our subseqeunt choices. Smart influence happens before any message is sent.

Pre-suasion may be controversial for traditional communicators – it argues that influence is primarily a game of attention and association, not persuasion and argument. But Robert Cialdini has pedigree in the field of communications. He is author of one of the most influential business books of all time – Influence, a 1984 book that is still #1 bestselling book on consumer behaviour on Amazon. Whilst Influence focuses on what to say to influence consumers, distilling the findings of scientific research into six universal messages, Pre-suasion focuses on when to influence.  And that time is before people notice they are being influenced.

Pre-suasion is built around the ideas of anchoring and priming. Anchoring – also known as the focusing effect/focusing illusion – is an attentional bias that means we systematically rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered (the “anchor”) when making decisions. Priming refers to how our attention and responses are systematically biased by what we’ve just been exposed to (exposure to one stimulus influences the response to another stimulus). Together priming and anchoring mean that whatever first captures our attention is seen as important, causal and directs our response.

• If you want people to buy a box of expensive chocolates, first arrange for them to write down a number that’s much larger than the price of the chocolates.
• If you want people to choose a bottle of French wine, first expose them to French background music before they decide.
• If you want people to agree to try an untested product, first inquire whether they consider themselves adventurous.
• If you want to convince people to select a highly popular item, we can begin by showing them a scary movie.
• If you want people to choose a more expensive but more comfy option, first show them fluffy clouds
• If you want people to feel warmly toward you, hand them a hot drink.
• If you want people to be more helpful to you, first have them look at photos of individuals standing close together.
• If you want people to be more achievement oriented, first provide them with an image of a runner winning a race.
• If you want people to make careful assessments, first show them a picture of Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker.

Priming Associations

Do you know the positive words and imagery that people associate with your category and category-related goals. No?  Well you’ll need to find out in order to become proficient in the art of pre-suasion. For example, if you want people to improve performance, first expose them to images and words associated with performance (win, attain, succeed, master).

These words and images are ‘primes’ that have ‘associative coherence’ with desired outcomes, and ready our mind for an associated response. For instance, telephone fund-raisers raised 60% more money when their script sheet contained an image of a runner winning at race. We may diss motivation posters as cheesy but they work. Likewise, young women do better on science, maths, and leadership tasks if assigned to rooms with cues (photos, for example) of women known to have mastered the tasks.

More generally, by embedding evocative associations in an initial framing message, you can prime how people respond to a subsequent message. For example, Stanford University researchers published two version of a news story about crime rates with just one word change – the soaring crime was either described as a ‘ravaging beast’ or ‘ravaging virus’.  When asked for their preferred solution – either catching and caging criminals or deal with underlying ‘unhealthy’ causes, those who saw the beast version tended to recommend the catch and cage solution, whilst those who saw the virus version recommended dealing with unhealthy causes (poverty, unemployment). The associative coherence between the descriptive metaphor and preferred solution directed preference.

The practical upshot.  Map positive associations – word associations and sensory associations (sounds, tastes, scents, touch and sights) related to category goals and benefits and use these positive association to pre-suade by priming.

Embedding Associations

Pre-suasion is the art and science of capturing and channelling attention. The big marketing challenge in a cluttered world is capturing attention. So whilst your may know the associations that you want to use to prime your audience’s mind, you first need to capture attention.  How do you do that? Pre-suasion lists 6 attention grabbing strategies

• The Sexual. Sexual stimuli have a pervasive power to command our attention, and influence our action, but the influence is more subtle and selective than we may think.  For example, a recent field experiment found that only 20% of men would agree to help a woman after having been asked for directions to Martin Street, but 36.7% agreed to help after having been asked for directions to Valentine Street. The men had been primed with romantic associations, and behaved more chivalrously. On the other hand, only 8% of top advertising campaigns use sex to sell. Why?  Because sex only sells when the product is linked to sexuality (cosmetics, perfume, form-fitting clothing). Sex doesn’t sell soda, soap powder or white goods because there is no strong association in the mind of the audience between sex and the product.
• The Threatening.  Threats to our personal safety or the safety of those we care about has attention grabbing power. It’s arguably what attention is for – being alert to threats. Threat and fear appeals, such as in tobacco packaging, have been shown to be pre-suasively effective, when they are followed by clear instructions on how to avoid the threat. Perhaps more interesting from an advertising perspective is when the pre-suasion and persuasion are uncoupled. Research carried out by Cialdini and evolutionary psychologist Vlad Griskevicius found that the perception of threat opens us up to messages to be part of a group (where there is safety and strength in numbers). In this experiment people people responded favourably to an ad for SF Museum of Modern Art that stressed its popularity (“Visited by over a million people each year) after having seen a violent movie, but not after seeing a romantic movie.  After the romantic movie, that ad that worked best emphasised distinctiveness of museum attendance (“Stand out from the crowd”). Once again, what happened before influenced how a subsequent message was received. The implication is ads and products that help people stand out will perform better when placed in or after romantic content, whilst ads and products that help people fit in will perform better in or after violent or threatening content.
• The Different.  In order to survive, we need to be aware of changes to our environment – and whenever we first register a change around us, we have an ‘orienting response’ that involves diverting our attention to it. If something is distinctive, out of the ordinary is stands out, it grabs our attention. And because it grabs our attention, the importance of what makes it distinctive is amplified. This attention-grabbing capacity of the distinctive can accentuate the influence subsequent messages.  For example, an experiment at NorthWestern involving a side by side online comparison of two sofas, one with comfy cushions, and the other with sturdy cushions resulted in a 58 percent to 42 percent preference for the sturdy cushion, but when two extra sofas with sturdy cushions were added to the comparison, preference for the different and distinctive sofa with comfy cushions increase to 77%. Bottom line, you don’t just have to Think Different, you have to be Different.
• The Self-Relevant.  Our attention appears to be honed to information about us, or relevant to us.  From the background chatter at a party, we have an uncanny knack of hearing someone mentioning our name (cocktail party effect).   In personal health, a message that is self-relevant because it has been tailored to or references us is more likely to capture our attention, interest, be memorised and even acted upon.  In fact, simply using the word you rather than ‘people’ may boost self-relevance
• The Unfinished. Our attention and memory shuts down once a problem is solved or an action completed.  In contrast our attention remains drawn to unfinished business. The idea that people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks is known as the Zeigarnik Effect (after Blumer Zeigarnik – a student of psychologist Kurt Lewin).  This explains why we remember stuff – including ads – better if they are unfinished, because our attention will remain drawn to it as we crave cognitive closure. A recent Facebook experiment shows the capacity of the unfinished to command our attention.  College women viewed the Facebook profiles of four male students who had previously seen their profiles and were told whether the male students were attracted to them a lot, no more than average, or not told at all.  As was predicted by ‘reciprocity principle’ (we like others who like us), the women were more attracted to the men that liked them a lot. But they were even more attracted to the men for whom they didn’t know.  We may crave closure, but we can be attracted to the unfinished.
• The Mysterious. Mysteries intrigue and captivate our attention.  Good writers and teachers know this, and will structure what they share as mysteries to be solved.  They will begin by posing the subject as a mystery, and then deepen the mystery with surprising observations.  Then, they’ll tease the audience by considering and discounting plausible but incorrect explantations, and then provide a clue to the real explanation. Only then will they resolve the mystery, and draw the implications. Whilst Cialdini does not share experimental evidence of the effectiveness of mystery at capturing, he points to his career and success has been built on systematically using it.

Bringing it altogether

The opportunity for marketers is to combine the embedding of associations in pre-suasive communication, with the embedding of influence cues form Cialdini’s Influence in messages.  This one-two of influence – pre-suasion then persuasion – provides marketers with a powerful communications framework that moves beyond mere argument.

In doing so, the promise is that you turbo-charge your influence. Combining the two steps to influence – Cialdini provides a process for non-rational influence.

1. Start with Pre-suasion. Capture and channel attention with by embedding positive category (goal) associations in attention appeals (The Sexual, The Threatening, The Different, The Self-Relevant, The Unfinished, The Mysterious)
2. Then use Liking (The obligations of friendship, or of being swayed by people you like) and Reciprocity(The obligation to give back) to establish rapport and cultivate a positive association with you as a communicator – in a meaningful, unexpected, and customized manner
3. Now use Authority (We follow those we view as experts) and Social Proof (The power of consensus, doing what we feel others are also doing) to reduce perceptions of uncertainty and risk
4. Finally, use Consistency (Need for personal alignment) and Scarcity (We want what may not be available) to motivate action

Cialdini concludes by proposing a seventh message cue to the six originally enumerated in Influence – Unity – we say yes to ‘we’ messages that appeal to a sense shared identity (genealogy or geography) or shared activity (synchronicity, collaboration (including – co-creation)). Naturally, sitting alongside Liking and Reciprocity in step 2 in the process of influence, creating a sense of unity between communicator and audience establishes rapport and positivity.

The Brand Genetics Take

We were not only pre-suaded by Pre-suasion, we were persuaded by it too.  It’s a fitting followup to the business book on Influence.  As an agency, we’ll be using pre-suasion techniques to craft compelling insights and concepts, and to help brands communicate more effectively. It’s perhaps true that Pre-suasion is not quite as ‘neat’  as Influence insofar as it doesn’t offer an off-the-peg solution to influence like the six (now seven) evidence-based message cues. Pre-suasion requires knowledge of the associations people make with the category and category goals, and embedding these in pre-suasive communication that frames a subsequent message. And that requires research. But for professional communicators, Pre-suasion is a goldmine of evidence-based insight into the attentional biases that influences our behaviour, and offer practical recommendation for how to harness these biases. We unreservedly recommend Pre-suasion to all branding and marketing professionals.

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How To Become An Influencer: 10 Tips For Success

 Original article from FORBES by:         ·        

Tom Ward , CONTRIBUTOR Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

With the rise of ad blockers, DVRs, and streaming music we don’t see as many ads as we used to; which is why influencer marketing is now the most effective form of advertising. Influencers have a loyal following, authenticity and trustworthiness making them so effective in persuading consumers to buy a product.

You know who the big influencers are. Chances are that you follow them on social media and watch their exotic vacations, their great clothes and their fabulous lifestyles. Who doesn’t want to work from home, make a ton of money, and get lots of free stuff?

So how do you become an influencer anyway?

1. Find Your Niche: Grab a pen and list your passions. They don’t have to fit in the normal categories, like: Travel, makeup, reviews, etc. Take Karina Garcia, for example. She’s into slime: The goopy, green stuff. Now she has a popular YouTube channel with millions of followers, where she teaches people how to make their own slime. She’s even got her own brand, available at Target. Whatever your passion is, go for it!

2. Do Something Unique: How many unsuccessful “lifestyle” bloggers are out there? Chances are that you have a friend who’s tried it. They have the passion for fashion, food, and travel but they couldn’t get a following. Why? Because they’re like everyone else. Be different than your competition.

3. Pick Your Channels: You can’t possibly be successful on all channels. Pick one channel to focus on and maybe two more to be active on. The popular F**k Jerry guys didn’t have a Twitter or Facebook page for years. They found their engagement was highest on Instagram, so they put all their energy into growing that channel. Focus and grow.

4. Create A Social Media Strategy: Don’t just wing it. Plan out your content. Make a list of the content you want to create for the next three months. Decide how often are you going to post. When will you post? Be consistent.

5. Create Great Content: This is where you’re going to spend most of your time. Make sure you create the best content you can. It’s your brand. And don’t be afraid to invest your money. If you were starting a business, you’d invest money wouldn’t you? If you’re serious about this, you should buy some good equipment.

6. Be Consistent: My favorite podcasts come out on the same day and time every week. Your content should be the same way. I post new articles on my blog every Tuesday at 5PM. You need to give your audience a reason to subscribe. If you don’t create new content, on a consistent schedule, why would they need to subscribe? They’re not missing anything.

7. Promote: You spent all this time creating content, but what good is it if nobody sees it? Remember, it’s 20% content creation and 80% promotion.

8. Collab: The quickest and easiest way to grow your audience is by working with a bigger influencer than you. Remember, there’s more in it for you than the bigger influencer, so you’ve got to help them out to make it worth their while. I figured out this trick with my Forbes articles. If I interviewed big influencers, and let them promote what they wanted, they would share the article and it’d get a ton of views.

9. Engage With Your Audience: This will be easy at first, because won't have a big following. Respond to every comment, follow people back, etc.

10. Look At The Data: What content is working? Who is your audience? Look at the analytics. Most platforms will give you the data but if they don’t, just look at what posts are getting the most likes and comments. What does your audience look like? Are they old or young, male or female? Create the content that is resonating with them. Finally, ask your audience what they want to see more of. Trust me, they’ll tell you.

1.      Be consistent.

1. Find your niche.

If you want to become a social media influencer, the very first thing you need to do is to choose a specific niche where you want to be known.

Although most social media influencers start out posting content, they're passionate about, what sets them apart is the fact that they tend to focus on a particular niche within the industry they're passionate about.

To find your little corner of influence, you'll need first to determine who is your target audience by developing a unique persona—a semi-fictional representation of your ideal reader. Tools like HubSpot’s Buyer Persona Generation Tool can help you identify the individual wants, needs, challenges, and goals of your ideal reader that you can help solve and address, pointing you to the right niche to establish yourself and grow as an influencer.

2. Use the "First Principles Thinking" approach.

In an interview with Kevin Rose, Elon Musk explained that there are two reasoning approaches people use. The first and most common is the analogy approach. People that use this reasoning method decide to do things based on what has happened in the past.

That's why we often see many people in a particular industry doing nearly the same thing, talking about the same topics, and even using similar formats when it comes to publishing and promoting their content.

The second reasoning approach is what Musk refers to as the First Principles Thinking approach. Instead of basing decisions on past successes or failures, Musk and others that use this reasoning approach study objective fundamentals and make their decisions based solely on that.

What’s good about following Musk’s way of thinking and reasoning is that it opens you up to other possibilities and approaches by “forcing” you to disregard the status quo, and think differently. Doing that can help set yourself apart from other influencers in your niche, and allow you to bring something new and fresh to the table for your target audience.

3. Choose your social media channel.

Instagram is the channel where 93% of social media influencers focus their content -- because it gives them the best results.

Source: Marketing Profs

However, just because those are the current statistics doesn't mean that Instagram is a perfect choice all the time.

The reason is simple: Your ideal audience may not be spending most of their time here.

If you want to quickly grow your following and establish yourself as a social media influencer, you need to make sure that you choose the right social media channel based on your niche and ideal audience.

Here are three questions to ask to help guide you in choosing the right social media channel:

Who is your target audience?

Again, this is where creating a holistic persona of your ideal audience is crucial. Instagram and Pinterest are excellent choices if you're aspiring to reach out to millennials. On the other hand, if your target audience consists mostly of business executives, LinkedIn may be your best bet.

Where are the other influencers in your niche?

Aside from sharing the same target audience, being active in social media channels where the big influencers in your niche open the door for you to reach out to them, and even collaborate with them in the future.

One tool I found extremely useful for this is BuzzSumo. When you do a search here using your targeted keyword, you'll not only see what topics other influencers have tackled, but where they also share these pieces of content.

This is extremely valuable -- it points you to the social media channel where the content is shared the most, making these ideal places to reach out and grow your following.

What type of content will you create?

Some social media channels like Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to post a diverse range of content formats while others like YouTube and Instagram only focus on providing users a specific content format.

That said, it's vital that you select the social media channel that best suit the content strategy you'll develop, which we will look into in the next section.

Regardless of which social media channel(s) you choose, remember not to go overboard with your selection. Stick to using two to three networks. Otherwise, you'll be spreading yourself too thin, and will find it difficult to build your credibility and following.

4. Develop your content strategy.

Just like in inbound marketing, the format and quality of the content you publish will make or break your chances of successfully building yourself as a social media influencer.

Decide on the format you'll use when creating your content. It should be one through which you're able not only to deliver valuable information,but also, express your personality and voice -- which help add uniqueness to the content you produce for your target audience.

Part of developing an effective content strategy is giving your audience the right balance of informative content and personal content. Remember, one reason why people trust influencers is due to their relatability.

One efficient way to do this is through the 5-3-2 principle: Out of every 10 posts you publish in your social media account, five of these should be valuable content written by someone else, three are educational and informative content you created yourself, and two should be posts about yourself.

Now, you may be thinking, "How will this help me become an influencer if half of the content I'll be publishing is curated content?"

For starters, influencers are known for being able to provide valuable content to their audience. That includes sharing content written by others that they believe their followers will find useful.

More important, sharing content published by other influencers in your niche will help you slowly get their attention. As a result, it will be much easier to reach out to them and ask them to do the same for you later on.

If you need help discovering topic ideas for your content, try these resources.

Google Related Search Keywords

This is found at the bottom of the page after you search on Google. It lists down the most frequently used long-tail keywords used by your target audience when searching for content on the internet.

Answer the Public

Answer the Public is a website that gives you a comprehensive list of the different questions that are commonly asked around your chosen keywords, which you can then answer through your content.

Quora

Similar to Answer the Public, Quora gives you a list of different questions asked surrounding your selected keyword. The main difference between the two is that unlike Answer the Public, which offers you a list of questions based on search algorithms, the questions you find in Quora are those that were left explicitly by individuals currently facing a problem or challenge.

At the same time, Quora allows its members to leave answers to these posted questions. This gives aspiring social media influencers the chance to flex their muscles, and showcase knowledge on this topic -- and, eventually, your niche.

5. Distribute your content.

No matter how great your content is, if you’re not getting people to see it and engage with it, it’s not exactly useful.

That said, it’s important that you carefully plan out when you’ll be publishing and distributing your content on social media.

The best time to post content on social media hugely depends on which social media channel you chose to use. This infographic provides a detailed breakdown of the best days and times when to distribute content for each of the most popular social media networks.

It's just as critical to know how to post your content on social media. While each social media channel has its own rules and guidelines, here are some general best practices that are applicable regardless on which social media channel you use.

Stick to one theme per social media channel.

Focusing on one specific theme for each of your social media channels allows you to give your followers a more holistic picture of who you are, what you do, and what you stand for. That way, you’re able to publish more diverse content while still keeping your profiles very sleek and cohesive.

More important, it helps you categorize the different types of content you publish. That way, your followers know which social media channel they’ll find the content they need from you.

Customize your message.

Even if you’re posting the same piece of content on different social media channels, always take the time to make sure that you customize the message you include in it. Not only does it make each of your posts more personalized, but as Aaron Haynes, founder of Fenix Pro points out, it prevents your followers from feeling like their being spammed on their social media feeds.

"You need to make sure that you tailor every single content you post caters to the wants and needs of your followers, whether it's a regular post or a paid post," he explains. "The worst thing is that they can report your account as spammy, which could mean the end of your social media influencer dream."

Optimize posts for mobile.

The average person spends over three hours on his or her mobile device.

Source: eMarketer

And within that time, 80% of it is spent on social media. That said, make sure that the posts you publish are just as appealing in mobile as they would be when viewed on desktops or laptops.

6. Grow your network.

While you’re still in the process of establishing your credibility and expertise as a social media influencer, you’ll need to actively grow your follower base.

One of the most effective ways of doing this is through blogging. Even though more Internet users are turning to social media networks for information, the fact remains that you don't entirely own your space here. One misstep can easily cause these social media networks to take down your account, causing you to lose all of your content and followers.

Blogging can help you kickstart your follower base by helping you get discovered. By including social media sharing buttons on each of your blog posts, your visitors can share your content with their respective social media networks.

If you have the budget, and you have a premium content offer on your blog, Justin Morgan -- a.k.a., the Dental Marketing Guy --recommends promoting it as a sponsored post. That way, your content can find its way onto the feeds of those that match your ideal persona, introducing yourself and what you have to offer to them.

Blogging is also an efficient way to reach out and connect with is influencers in your niche as well as those related to yours. Blogging was how I connected with key influencers in my niche and exponentially grew my follower base.

Creating guest posts is another way of growing your followers. Getting featured on a reputable site within your niche helps you further establish your credibility and authority. At the same time, it will help you capture the attention of the more prominent influencers in your niche, and even open the door for collaboration with them.

7. Engage with your followers.

When your followers leave a question or comment on your posts, take the time to acknowledge and respond to them. That can make them feel like they're valued and that you sincerely want to help them. It will also help you develop a relationship with them.

Of course, not all of the comments and questions will be positive. As an influencer, expect that you’ll have your fair share of negative comments and criticisms. Make it a point to keep your cool and address them professionally.

8. Evaluate your progress.

This step is crucial, especially if you’re looking to collaborate with brands for their influencer marketing campaigns, since this is one of the things that brands look for in an influencer to partner with.

Most social media channels give you insights and analytics to monitor your progress -- things like demographics, reach, and engagement rate, that will show how quickly (or slowly) you’re building your audience. It will also shed light on which content formats get the highest engagement rates, so that you can create more of these.

9. Stay updated.

If you’ve been active on any social media channel, you know how often networks update their algorithms, as well as their posting terms and conditions. As an aspiring influencer, you need to keep yourself updated with these changes to avoid penalizations.

You’ll also need to familiarize yourself with FTC guidelines and policies, especially if you’re going to be collaborating with brands to promote their products and services on your social media accounts.

With influencer marketing proving itself as a highly effective marketing strategy, the FTC has become even more vigilant in monitoring brands and partner influencers that might be violating marketing guidelines.

10. Be consistent.

According to Adam Steele, founder of Loganix, if there’s one thing that surpasses quality content, it’s consistency.

That’s because your followers need to be able to count on you to deliver quality content on a consistent basis. If you don’t, they’ll eventually stop following you, or at least paying attention to you.

Scheduling your posts using a social automation tool like eClincheror HubSpot’s social publishing tools can help ensure that you stay consistent with your posts. Instead of manually publishing on each of your social media profiles, these tool allow you to create, upload, and schedule posts in batches.

Positioning yourself as a social media influencer will take some time, so you'll need to be patient with the process, and stay consistent with it.

Most important, understand that becoming a social media influencer in your industry is not the end destination. Instead, it's a stepping stone to more significant opportunities and responsibilities.

Originally published January 30 2018, updated January 30 2018

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