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Brief
Chain letters are generally unloved, mostly because they try to bully or guilt you into doing something you don’t really care to (“send this to 10 others or babies in Africa will die”).
But what if, instead, your friends sent you an e-mail or text that encouraged you to join in an action that was actually good for your emotional or physical health, like pledging to practice deep breathing or eat more fruits and vegetables?
Strategy
A new Change Reaction challenge is launched each week, and participants -- the links in the chain, as it were -- all pledge to perform a healthy behavior and pass the challenge on to their friends.
Members of each chain can see who else is taking part, read their comments, and earn points for each chain they join and each invited friend who joins.
“All of this comes back to the science of amplifying the influence of healthy behaviors in your network,” said MeYou Health head of product Trapper Markelz. “If I agree to do something healthy like pledge to eat more vegetables, but I have no support for that in my network, than the chance of me doing it is less than if there are many close people in my network also doing the same behavior. So with Change Reaction our goal is to get you to do something healthy and enforce that across the network by having your friends pledge to do the same thing.”
The interactive program leverages the social-networking capability of Facebook and integrates the Daily Challenges launched in September by MeYou Health. “Change Reaction gives us a new platform for delivering content, seeding interaction, and mapping the health social graph,” said Markelz.
Execution
Mike Gamaroff, Managing Director of UK-based Gamaroff Digital said that the Daily Challenge employs a form of Social Influence Marketing, used by charities and brands on Facebook to provide opportunities for users to perform actions that are then automatically publicized.
“People are influenced by friends who donate to charity, attend an event or perform an action,” he said. “When spread around, the propagation occurs rapidly over time when users lead their friends by doing things which are good – either because they want to show support, compete with them, or they feel compelled through peer pressure. Tapping into these techniques is what Change Reaction is all about.”
The user interface designed by Gamaroff Digital -- one of only a few dozen members of the Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant Program -- depicts the chain of like-intentioned individuals as an infinite spiral; roll over an image of a member’s face and their name, the date they joined the chain, and their comments appear. Graphics indicate how many people have pledged each action and explain its importancefrom a well-being perspective.
“Profile pics are the most fundamentally important social feature of Facebook, and was indeed the concept on which Facebook was founded,” noted Gamaroff. “When people see faces, they feel connected socially and with real people. Using these wherever possible is important to make the app feel like an extension of Facebook, and not merely something stuck inside it.”
Change Reaction makes it easy to keep track of who else is pledging the same activity both within and outside of your own social network. As you agree to take each action, a dialogue pops up asking whether you want to post the pledge on your Facebook page or invite your friends to do the same.
“Brands have to sell products that people may or may not need, but everyone recognizes that healthy actions are personally beneficial and something that they are likely neglecting and just need some kickstart,” Gamaroff said. “Most importantly, however, it is much more compelling when seeing friends doing themselves good than seeing your friends buying something or engaging with a brand. We all feel a need to compete if we recognize one of our friends has the initiative to look after themselves, and we will be coerced into doing the same.”
Results
The initial launch of Change Reaction took place in October 2010, and Markelz said the product is being tweaked and refined based on user feedback and real-world experience. The app launched with four challenges but more will be added, as will a Leaderboard and other enhancements designed to reinforce participation and demonstrate how each individual “link in the chain” has influenced the behavior of others.
Me You Health has almost 25,000 fans, and without any publicity for the first month on the Fan Page alone, was able to gain 3,000 active users in October. These users were either notified via the Fan Page wall or were respondents from the vibrant news feeds calling friends to get involved. As the campaign picks up speed and various channels of promotion begin to go live, these numbers are due to swell rapidly over the coming months.
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