Creating Social Contagion Through Viral Product Design: A Randomized Trial of Peer Influence in Networks

Sinan Aral () and Dylan Walker ()
Additional contact information
Sinan Aral: Information, Operations, and Management Sciences, Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10012
Dylan Walker: Information, Operations, and Management Sciences, Stern School of Business, New York University, New York, New York 10012

Management Science, 2011, vol. 57, issue 9, 1623-1639

Abstract: We examine how firms can create word-of-mouth peer influence and social contagion by designing viral features into their products and marketing campaigns. To econometrically identify the effectiveness of different viral features in creating social contagion, we designed and conducted a randomized field experiment involving the 1.4 million friends of 9,687 experimental users on Facebook.com. We find that viral features generate econometrically identifiable peer influence and social contagion effects. More surprisingly, we find that passive-broadcast viral features generate a 246% increase in peer influence and social contagion, whereas adding active-personalized viral features generate only an additional 98% increase. Although active-personalized viral messages are more effective in encouraging adoption per message and are correlated with more user engagement and sustained product use, passive-broadcast messaging is used more often, generating more total peer adoption in the network. Our work provides a model for how randomized trials can identify peer influence in social networks. This paper was accepted by Pradeep Chintagunta and Preyas Desai, special issue editors. This paper was accepted by Pradeep Chintagunta and Preyas Desai, special issue editors.

Keywords: peer influence; social contagion; social networks; viral marketing; viral product design; information systems; randomized experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (150)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1110.1421 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:57:y:2011:i:9:p:1623-1639

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().