contagious

To engineer word-of-mouth growth, you apply the STEPPS psychological framework to optimize your campaign for social currency, environmental triggers, and high-arousal emotions. This systematic approach designs shareable features rather than relying on luck to drive virality.

The STEPPS framework for product virality is a psychological model evaluating content across six drivers: Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, and Stories. It provides an evidence-based structure to ensure ideas and products spread naturally through peer recommendation.

You audit your content to increase viral potential by scoring it against the six STEPPS psychological drivers. This diagnostic system identifies which specific shareability factors, such as high-arousal emotions or practical value, are missing from your current campaign.

You can use psychological triggers to improve your referral program by designing features that provide enough social currency and high-arousal emotional responses. Optimizing these drivers ensures users are motivated to share your program with their network.

Your marketing campaign lacks natural peer recommendation because it is missing key psychological drivers of shareability. Without optimizing for social currency, environmental triggers, or high-arousal emotions, your growth remains unpredictable instead of leveraging systematic word-of-mouth.