Dan Zarrella: 13 Takeaways

March 6, 2012

Today we had the opportunity to have Dan Zarrella present The Science of Social Media at MIT. Being an institution of higher learning that especially loves science, MIT was pleased to welcome Dan. In his presentation, Dan did some myth busting and gave us some takeaways. Here's a taste of what we enjoyed:

Myths:

1. Ideas spread because they're good.
2. 'Engaging in the conversation' is the most important thing on social media.
3. Don't call yourself a guru.
4. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are bad days to publish.

Takeaways:

1. Engaging in the conversation doesn't always work. Publishing interesting content does.
2. Identify yourself authoritatively.
3. Positivity works better than negativity.
4. Don't crowd your own content.
5. Put links in the middle - or a quarter of the way through - long tweets.
6. Use contra-competitive timing.
7. Novel ideas are contagious.
8. Use social proof.
9. Social proof and novelty work in concert.
10. Write simply and plainly.
11. Utilize combined relevance.
12. Share lots of interesting content.
13. Don't forget social calls-to-action.

Quotation of the day:

“I like running zombies; I like fast-moving zombies. Zombies don’t eat brains. The idea of zombies eating brains comes from zombie comedies.”