What is the most effective way to spread a secret?
October 21, 2017 9:20 PM Subscribe
A secret question under the fold...
First off, no, I'm not trying to ruin anyone!
One thing I've noticed is that people seem to respond well to hearing secrets from others. They often react with curiosity and openness. The information is considered high value and trustworthy probably partially due to its perceived scarcity. I would guess that it also makes the person feel they are higher status due to knowing the secret a others don't know.
This is much different than when people are exposed to standard forms of mass advertising. The value of the information being transmitted is more often than not considered very low status by the person receiving the information and relatively untrustworthy. The person receiving the message generally reacts much more skeptically and judgmentally.
I would like to hack into this trait of human nature somehow. Suppose you wanted to market and spread an idea far and wide and have it considered to be in the higher value secret category instead of the lower mass advertising status, are there ways that the secret status can be signalled and yet spread an idea efficiently without resorting to mass advertising?
First off, no, I'm not trying to ruin anyone!
One thing I've noticed is that people seem to respond well to hearing secrets from others. They often react with curiosity and openness. The information is considered high value and trustworthy probably partially due to its perceived scarcity. I would guess that it also makes the person feel they are higher status due to knowing the secret a others don't know.
This is much different than when people are exposed to standard forms of mass advertising. The value of the information being transmitted is more often than not considered very low status by the person receiving the information and relatively untrustworthy. The person receiving the message generally reacts much more skeptically and judgmentally.
I would like to hack into this trait of human nature somehow. Suppose you wanted to market and spread an idea far and wide and have it considered to be in the higher value secret category instead of the lower mass advertising status, are there ways that the secret status can be signalled and yet spread an idea efficiently without resorting to mass advertising?
Response by poster: I guess one good example would be how some religions try to spread the word that they have special wisdom and secret knowledge to the would be follower. They would want their ideas to be perceived as high value and yet also want to spread far and wide.
Secret societies on the other hand also have perceived high value information that people want to know, but intentionally limit their membership.
Corporate mass advertisers have low value information to offer, but want to spread their ideas to would be consumers far and wide.
So I'd want to fall in the religions bucket, I think.
posted by Gosha_Dog at 10:19 PM on October 21, 2017
Secret societies on the other hand also have perceived high value information that people want to know, but intentionally limit their membership.
Corporate mass advertisers have low value information to offer, but want to spread their ideas to would be consumers far and wide.
So I'd want to fall in the religions bucket, I think.
posted by Gosha_Dog at 10:19 PM on October 21, 2017
This is a tactic used for events all the time.
posted by jessca84 at 10:25 PM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by jessca84 at 10:25 PM on October 21, 2017 [2 favorites]
Not an answer but Pattern Recognition / William Gibson 2002 explores memes and spreading them for the purpose of selling high-end fashion . An amazing book, altho' for me it took a second reading to get value from it (there's some unsettling stuff around marketing the military/ selling the idea of war which sounds spot on when one looks at the how the world appears to work).
posted by unearthed at 10:36 PM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by unearthed at 10:36 PM on October 21, 2017 [7 favorites]
"I guess one good example would be how some religions try to spread the word that they have special wisdom and secret knowledge to the would be follower. They would want their ideas to be perceived as high value and yet also want to spread far and wide. "
Religions that have secrets fall into two buckets: Very small religions whose secrets are available only to initiates (i.e., not spread far and wide); or larger religions with only some of the knowledge secret. In the latter case -- things like Mormonism, Scientology, Kabbalah in Judaism -- the base/general knowledge is widely available to anyone who's curious and the recruiting part of the religion is performed through outreach based on the general information (and sometimes the apparently awesome lives of the members). People -- even outsiders -- typically know there's secret knowledge*, but the secrets themselves are reserved for people who pass through certain general levels first and prove their readiness (maturity, discretion, loyalty, whatever) to receive the secrets. They're then typically inducted into a high-status group within the religion, once they possess the secrets.
(*The secret knowledge is often actually private/secret ceremonies; the general outlines of the ceremony, or even its specifics, may be widely known, but participation in the ceremony would be restricted to initiates, and the ceremony would be supposed to effect a metaphysical change in the participant. Like, everyone pretty much knows what the "secret ceremonies" of the Mormons are, they're not meant to be never spoken of to outsiders, you just can't go participate in them unless you're an initiate.)
Anyway, the religion example would rely on an open base of knowledge/information/ceremonies used to recruit and evangelize, and then a higher tier of secret knowledge given only to people who prove themselves in some fashion. The higher tier has to come with some kind of cachet -- community respect, financial rewards, spiritual enlightenment, governing authority -- for people to be interested in it. There are definitely some people who want to know a secret just because it's a secret, but in the religious example, the secret knowledge is valuable because possessing it conveys to the possessor something of value.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:30 PM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
Religions that have secrets fall into two buckets: Very small religions whose secrets are available only to initiates (i.e., not spread far and wide); or larger religions with only some of the knowledge secret. In the latter case -- things like Mormonism, Scientology, Kabbalah in Judaism -- the base/general knowledge is widely available to anyone who's curious and the recruiting part of the religion is performed through outreach based on the general information (and sometimes the apparently awesome lives of the members). People -- even outsiders -- typically know there's secret knowledge*, but the secrets themselves are reserved for people who pass through certain general levels first and prove their readiness (maturity, discretion, loyalty, whatever) to receive the secrets. They're then typically inducted into a high-status group within the religion, once they possess the secrets.
(*The secret knowledge is often actually private/secret ceremonies; the general outlines of the ceremony, or even its specifics, may be widely known, but participation in the ceremony would be restricted to initiates, and the ceremony would be supposed to effect a metaphysical change in the participant. Like, everyone pretty much knows what the "secret ceremonies" of the Mormons are, they're not meant to be never spoken of to outsiders, you just can't go participate in them unless you're an initiate.)
Anyway, the religion example would rely on an open base of knowledge/information/ceremonies used to recruit and evangelize, and then a higher tier of secret knowledge given only to people who prove themselves in some fashion. The higher tier has to come with some kind of cachet -- community respect, financial rewards, spiritual enlightenment, governing authority -- for people to be interested in it. There are definitely some people who want to know a secret just because it's a secret, but in the religious example, the secret knowledge is valuable because possessing it conveys to the possessor something of value.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:30 PM on October 21, 2017 [3 favorites]
I feel like what you're looking for is simply "word of mouth." I think it has less to do with it being a "secret" and more to do with the message coming from someone you know and trust. I vaguely remember from my advertising class in college that the more limited the communication, the more powerful it was. i.e. A TV commercial reaches a ton of people, but it's not potent. Direct mail is a bit better because it goes directly to someone, but it can't reach as many people. Word of mouth, that is people sharing the message to others, is the most effective of all. I think it's a particularly powerful thing in political campaigning -- people are more likely to listen to the people they know than ads, and people (claim to) hate negative political ads.
This question also makes me think of how Facebook got started. Its exclusivity made it attractive to college students who didn't want to be on some social network anyone could join. They knew that by joining Facebook, it was a network of their peers. It slowly loosened those restrictions and now most college kids' parents and grandparents are using it too, but if Facebook had always been opened to everyone, a la MySpace, it probably wouldn't have spread so much. It spread in a concentrated way that forced kids at certain colleges to join it because no other network would have as many of their peers. A lot of new social networks that launch try to use an invite system to force their network to grow organically -- people will use a social network if they know their friends are on it. I think "invites" which is how Facebook, Gmail, Google+, etc. launched, may be somewhat close to what you're describing.
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:00 AM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
This question also makes me think of how Facebook got started. Its exclusivity made it attractive to college students who didn't want to be on some social network anyone could join. They knew that by joining Facebook, it was a network of their peers. It slowly loosened those restrictions and now most college kids' parents and grandparents are using it too, but if Facebook had always been opened to everyone, a la MySpace, it probably wouldn't have spread so much. It spread in a concentrated way that forced kids at certain colleges to join it because no other network would have as many of their peers. A lot of new social networks that launch try to use an invite system to force their network to grow organically -- people will use a social network if they know their friends are on it. I think "invites" which is how Facebook, Gmail, Google+, etc. launched, may be somewhat close to what you're describing.
posted by AppleTurnover at 12:00 AM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
In some ways this is the difference between PR and advertising.
posted by KateViolet at 12:44 AM on October 22, 2017
posted by KateViolet at 12:44 AM on October 22, 2017
There is a holiday deals company in the UK that just buys regular national TV ad space, and has adverts in which someone literally whispers to you the secret of where they got their fancy holiday for very cheap. And I think asks you not to tell everyone?
posted by quacks like a duck at 2:19 AM on October 22, 2017
posted by quacks like a duck at 2:19 AM on October 22, 2017
That ad campaign was for Secret Escapes I think.
Vodafone ran an interesting campaign to spread word about an app to help victims of domestic abuse. Details of the app were hidden in videos aimed at women.
posted by KateViolet at 4:17 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Vodafone ran an interesting campaign to spread word about an app to help victims of domestic abuse. Details of the app were hidden in videos aimed at women.
posted by KateViolet at 4:17 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
"Here are three tricks "they" don't want you to know about!"
posted by gideonfrog at 5:53 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by gideonfrog at 5:53 AM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
So something like "secret menus" in certain restaurants? Look up "In and Out burgers secret menu", or maybe Starbucks.
posted by pyro979 at 8:09 AM on October 22, 2017
posted by pyro979 at 8:09 AM on October 22, 2017
Make your service invite-only, and give each user a limited number of invites. This is what Gmail did in the early days—people were buying invites off eBay. This is also what certain Slack channels today are doing.
Put up a landing page saying that your service is in "private beta" and ask interested users to join a mailing list to hear when the beta opens.
Only open your service for registration at certain hours of the day, like witches.town on Mastodon.
posted by icosahedron at 11:02 AM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
Put up a landing page saying that your service is in "private beta" and ask interested users to join a mailing list to hear when the beta opens.
Only open your service for registration at certain hours of the day, like witches.town on Mastodon.
posted by icosahedron at 11:02 AM on October 22, 2017 [3 favorites]
This makes me think of dog whistling - phrases that pass unnoticed by all but the intended audience. Often used these days by right-wingers but the concept could be used in any direction.
posted by lakeroon at 1:47 PM on October 22, 2017
posted by lakeroon at 1:47 PM on October 22, 2017
Long time ago when I was in high school, I heard a joke while out of town. (What's sexy and hums? I don't know. HUMMMMM.) When I got back to school, I told the joke once in the morning, and someone different told the joke to me at end of the day.
I think the trick to circulation is that it's interesting and/or fun. Also, you want to avoid the notion it's a secret because, believe it or not, some people keep secrets.
posted by SemiSalt at 2:18 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
I think the trick to circulation is that it's interesting and/or fun. Also, you want to avoid the notion it's a secret because, believe it or not, some people keep secrets.
posted by SemiSalt at 2:18 PM on October 22, 2017 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I think the invite-only thing was a big part of Gmail's early success. It made it seem cooler than it was because not everyone could use it.
You're not actually keeping a secret; you're just restricting access.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:14 PM on October 22, 2017
You're not actually keeping a secret; you're just restricting access.
posted by kevinbelt at 5:14 PM on October 22, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by batter_my_heart at 9:49 PM on October 21, 2017