The Narcissistic Principle: Why We Share in Social Media

There’s a nar­ciss­ist­ic prin­ciple behind all social shares.

I’ll exam­ine why we share on social media in this blog post.

I’ll also demon­strate why brands should think dif­fer­ently about social media copy.

Here we go:

Why We Share on Social Media

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Why We Share on Social Media

“People want to be loved; fail­ing that admired; fail­ing that feared; fail­ing that hated and des­pised. They want to evoke some sort of sen­ti­ment. The soul shud­ders before obli­vi­on and seeks con­nec­tion at any price.”
— Hjalmar Söderberg (1869−1941), Swedish author

When we share on social media, we share for a reas­on. And that reas­on typ­ic­ally has some­thing to do with ourselves:

• We share to make ourselves look smart.
• We share to fit in and to stand out.
• We share to express individuality.
• We share to belong to our in-group.
• We share to be loved.
• We share to pro­voke reac­tions for attention.
• We share to extract sympathy.
• We share to make us feel bet­ter about ourselves.
• We share to get ahead.
• We share to grow an audience.
• We share to com­pensate for our shortcomings.
• We share to get the respect we need.

If you can get social media to work for you, great. But you should also be mind­ful not to let the pres­sure get the bet­ter of you.

“A status update with no likes (or a clev­er tweet without retweets) becomes the equi­val­ent of a joke met with silence. It must be rethought and rewrit­ten. And so we don’t show our true selves online, but a mask designed to con­form to the opin­ions of those around us.”
— Neil Strauss, Wall Street Journal

Learn more: The Narcissistic Principle: Why We Share on Social Media

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

Prompts for Self-Expression

Look at this tweet where I’ve replied:

I’m being manip­u­lated by the nar­ciss­ist­ic prin­ciple here. The ori­gin­al tweet is bait­ing people to reply. I’m try­ing to sig­nal that I’m smart here, but that’s not the case.

The tweet is most likely sent out by a Russian bot aim­ing to ignite divi­sion. Like a noob, I reacted, try­ing to be funny.

The psy­cho­lo­gic­al power of tweets like these is how they’re designed to be prompts for self-expres­sion. Brand updates in social media prac­tic­ally nev­er do this.

The kick­er is that most brand updates are miss­ing the point of this nar­ciss­ist­ic prin­ciple. They use up all the oxy­gen, so there’s noth­ing left for any­one to add.

The Narcissistic Principle for Brands

So, we rarely share cor­por­ate mes­sages on our social net­works. Not because brands have noth­ing inter­est­ing to say but because they’re doing a good job ensur­ing everything is being said.

To run a DIY exper­i­ment, I col­lec­ted 100 social media updates re-shared by a user. Out of these, 86 updates included shared com­ments where the users expressed some­thing about themselves.

I then col­lec­ted a smal­ler sample of branded social media updates without shares. I tried to think of my share com­ment — if I were to share these tweets. Nothing came to mind.

So, what to do?

Look at your brand’s social media copy. If someone were to share your update in their feeds, would it be easy to instantly add share com­ments to express themselves? 

PR Resource: More Social Media

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Doctor Spin’s PR School: Free Social Media Course

Discover this free Social Media PR Course and mas­ter the art of digit­al pub­lic rela­tions on social net­works and plat­forms. Explore now for valu­able insights!

• Social Media — The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
• Social Media Algorithms and How They Rule Our Lives
• The Follower Contract
• The Silent Switch — A Stealthy Death for the Social Graph
• The Narcissistic Principle: Why We Share in Social Media
• Social Media Naturals
• Social Media Myths in PR
• No Brand Community for You
• How Ghost Followers Destroy Your Social Accounts
• Critical Mass: How Many Social Media Followers Do You Need?
• A Community Manager’s Job Description
• Facebook Zero: Your First Fix Was Free
• Dark Social: The Online Interaction We Can’t See
• The List of Social Media Issues

Learn more: All Free PR Courses

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

PR Resource: The Stupid Majority

The Stupid Majority

From what the Conversion Theory teaches us, minor­it­ies tend to hold their opin­ions more firmly. This is reas­on­able since going against the major­ity comes at a high­er social cost. ¹Silfwer, J. (2017, June 13). Conversion Theory — Disproportionate Minority Influence. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​o​n​v​e​r​s​i​o​n​-​t​h​e​o​ry/

But some minor­it­ies have an addi­tion­al advantage:

Smart Minority = a minor­ity of today that will grow into a new major­ity of tomorrow.

In con­trast, some major­it­ies have an addi­tion­al disadvantage:

Stupid Majority = a major­ity of today that will stead­ily decline into a minor­ity of tomorrow.

Identifying a Stupid Majority (and sid­ing with a Smart Minority) will cla­ri­fy your core mes­sage and attract highly engaged minor­ity supporters.

Examples of Stupid Majorities

Stupid Majorities are to be found everywhere:

What’s a Stupid Majority in your industry?

Read also: The Stupid Majority PR Strategy: How Underdogs Dominate