Information Cascades and Viral Videos
Cutting and pasting a URL into an email occurs 10 times more often than any other type of sharing. Our Sharing Peak Day and Hour occurs Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. and most users click 2 minutes after the content is shared. According to our textbook, an information cascade has the potential to occur when people make decisions sequentially, with later people watching the actions of earlier people, and from these actions inferring something about what the earlier people know. The latest viral video sensation on Facebook seems to be Jimmy Kimmel telling parents to tell their kids they ate their Halloween candy. The video, which was just posted on November 2, already has more than 12 million views (for those who have yet to see it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQpbzQ6gzs). Multiple people’s statuses and wall posts included this humorous video, but this is not just “mindless imitation.”
Based on Direct-Benefit effects, by conforming your own specific behavior to the behavior of others you may receive a benefit in return. By aligning your behavior in this case you receive a “social benefit” in that you reflect that you are “in the know,” and others in your network (or even outside of it) will believe you have a good sense of humor for example. This is also of an example of how social pressure causes people to conform, without any underlying informational causes.
This image from AdWeek shows an interesting model of how we react to some of these viral videos.
http://edit.adweek.com/photo/data-points-share-and-share-alike-infographic-136236#1
