Social Currency · Triggers · Emotion · Public · Practical Value · Stories

Triggers are environmental cues that remind people of your content, product, or idea after first exposure. The classic example Berger gives is Rebecca Black's Friday — it surged in searches every Friday not because of the song's quality but because the day itself was a trigger. In copywriting, triggers are built by connecting your content to something the reader encounters regularly: a day of the week, a daily habit, a seasonal event, a shared cultural reference. Content with a built-in trigger gets recalled and shared long after first contact.

Berger's research showed that not all emotions drive sharing equally. High-arousal emotions — awe, excitement, anxiety, anger, amusement — significantly increase sharing behaviour. Low-arousal emotions — sadness, contentment — do not. For copywriters, this means optimising not just for positive emotion but for activating emotion. Content that makes readers feel something strongly is more likely to be shared than content that makes them feel good. The highest-shareability combination is high arousal + social currency: content that's both emotionally activating and that makes the sharer look good for finding it.

Public is the principle that behaviour and ideas spread more easily when they're visible. When people can see others using something, they're more likely to try it themselves. In content, Public means making the content itself broadcast-worthy — formatted to spread on social platforms, easy to screenshot and share, or associated with a visible behaviour (a hashtag, a challenge, a badge). In product design, it means making the product visible in use: a distinctive design, a branded packaging moment, a shareable output.

Practical Value is the most reliable and consistent STEPPS element because it taps into altruism: people share content that will help their friends, colleagues, and contacts. The key insight from Berger's research is that people share useful content not because of the content itself but because of the social relationship — sharing a useful article is a way of saying 'I thought of you.' For copywriters, this means that the most shareable content is specific, actionable, and clearly applicable to a recognisable situation — not generally informative, but specifically helpful.

Berger's research confirmed what every great storyteller already knew: people remember and repeat stories far more readily than they remember and repeat facts or arguments. The key insight for copywriters is that information presented as story travels with the message embedded in it — you can't retell the story without retelling the lesson. Facts, by contrast, can be separated from their context. The most shareable content packages its core message in a narrative that carries the message wherever the story goes.