Posted on Apr 20th, 2006

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Following up on What Makes an Idea Viral Part 1:

No one “gets” an idea unless:
a. the first impression demands further investigation
b. they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea
I think these two points are all parts of the ?why does someone send an idea? line of thinking. The target, of course, must ?get? an idea, they must be able to understand it and it has to be ?truthy?, that is the idea must fit into the desired world view of the target. While the meme or creative may change the target?s current perception of the world, it cannot run counter to what the target wants to believe.

c. they trust or respect the sender enough to invest the time
There is a certain amount of self-selection that goes into deciding who a sender will pass a message to that ensures that a high percentage of the receivers will trust and respect the sender. It is also important to remember that, as noted in the last post, the effort required to send or get a message on the internet is extremely low, so there is a much lower threshold online for messenger respect. There is also a certain level of respect that can be waived if the meme has a strong hook and strongly entices the receiver to devote more time to it.

Next, I’ll do some case studies.

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