Dan Zarella - the social media scientist - suggests that as social media marketers, there are lessons that we can learn from hypnosis and suggestion - though personally I'd be more likely to take this as a bit of light entertainment and genuinely fascinate our "subjects", over trying to hypnotise them 🙂  There are one or two good (ethical) points - share your ideas on hypnotising in marketing, in the comments!
1. Suggestibility
This is a measure of how inclined a person is to act a suggestion of another person. Research indicates shown that there's a connections between how hypnotizeable a person is and how easily they react to suggestions.
Zarella suggest that in social media, once we understand the level of engagement - the people who respond to joining email lists, who ReTweet links, or respond with social interactions such as Likes and comments - Zarella suggests these "are rudimentary forms of suggestibility tests". I'd add that even more so for people who are true fans and actually bought the product, and where social media marketing is most effective.
2. Social Requests
Experiments conducted on highly suggestible people in 1998 showed that subjects who were given non-hypnotic social requests to send a series of postcards to the experimenters did so more often than those who were given hypnotic suggestions. This seems to indicate that simple social requests can be just as powerful with ordinary, subjective people as full-on hypnosis.
Remember this research when designing user journeys and calls-to-action. We can achieve the same levels of compliance as professional hypnotists with well formed "social requests".
3. Capitalise On Expectancy Manipulation
Studies revealed that by creating the "expectations of suggestibility, subjects can be made more suggestible than they"€™d otherwise be". "I believe, therefore I am", as the saying goes. Subjects tested and shown "€œevidence"€ that they were highly suggestible become far more suggestible upon retaking the test later on.
We know that people want to improve their reputations, so as marketers we can consider increasing the expectation that sharing, liking and commenting our content will do wonders for our audience"€™s reputation. Loads of opportunity here!
4. Create Authority
In hypnosis, as in life - your authority and credibility are paramount to getting people to buy in to what you say, to believe that you are what you say you are. In branding and social media we know that it's appear authoritative and authentic so as not to risk damage to the brand.
Think about indications of social proof like high subscriber or follower counts can help, endorsements, quality comments and Likes too, of course.
5. Lower Psychological Barriers
Both stage and clinical hypnotists typically give a "€œpreinduction talk."€ The idea of the talk is to establish rapport, remove the fears, about hypnosis, and hopefully establish favourable expectations.
For marketers at least, rapport-building (just like trust) is not a quick win, suggests Zarella, "the more you can align your own interests and motivations with your audience the better". Our aim is to feel like you are 'one of us', you recognise the motivations and unmet needs of the audience. Ingratiate yourself with your audience by remaining humble and frequently commenting on their intelligence.
Also, recognise that "If you"€™re asking them share something they might be embarrassed by, do your best to anticipate their social fears and assuage them before you ask them to share".
6. Direct Suggestions
In their 1956 book on hypnosis, Cooke and Van Vogt offer three "€œrules"€ that can be applied to social media calls-to-action: "€œBe Positive,"€ "€œBe Specific,"€ and "€œBe Detailed."€
To alleviate phobias through hypnosis, they explain that by saying "€œyou are not afraid"€ you are creating a large mental image of "€œfear"€ with a small label "€œnot."€ Negation requires higher level mental processing, avoid calls-to-action like "€œdon"€™t hesitate to ReTweet", and be as specific and detailed as possible, "€œReTweet this article by clicking on this link."€ Avoid vague calls to "€œshare"€.
7. Repetition
The majority of hypnotic subjects that repeat the experience reach deeper and deeper states of trance - and so to the power of the repeated suggestions that they are given.
Not only can we enhance the power of our calls-to-action by repeating them more than once in a single piece of content, we build on their effectiveness across those multiple touch-points.
