Key points about Herd

The Super-Social Ape

The first and most important insight to take from this book is that human beings are designed ultimately to be super-social apes. As a western reader and therefore someone who values their individualism, this premise is hard to get on board with at first – but, with a little patience, it is easy to get on board with the way that Earls thinks.

Herd by Mark Earls explores a wide-ranging body of research, from neuroscience to social psychology (e.g., Game Theory), to support his argument that we, as humans, are inherently social and act only on learnt herd behaviour. One particularly compelling piece of research is on mirror neurons: the finding that we have specific cerebral connections designed to process the actions of others around us. Research shows that when we observe others’ actions, the same neurons that fire when we perform the action ourselves fire again, as though we are mentally mirroring our peers’ actions.

Earls brings insights from Clinical Psychology to support this claim. He explores how in autistic individuals, who present with a deficit in social interaction and empathic concern, lack sound functioning mirror neurons. Earls uses this insight to support his claim that mirror neurons are evidence of our inherently social nature, by nature.

C2C, not B2C

Mark Earls urges business owners and marketers to move away from the B2C thinking of “what do we do to them” and adopt a more C2C style thinking – “how do they impact each other”. To support this premise, Earls brings in numerous real-life examples – from the rise of the Arctic Monkeys to the MMR crisis. At the centre of both of these very different examples is the importance of human interaction.

The Arctic Monkeys grew to fame not through careful, record-label-guided marketing, but through fan-to-fan interaction via free concerts and music, encouraging fans to share with friends and family. Similarly, with the MMR crisis, it became just that, a crisis, because of human interaction and less so because of the actual findings reported. Often, the finer details are less important; what matters is the social interaction a situation like those mentioned generates.

Peer-to-peer interaction

This is the real goal of all marketers. The most frequently observed form of social interaction is word of mouth. It is important to note that endogenous (naturally arising) word of mouth is much more powerful than exogenous (stimulated by outside forces) word of mouth, and therefore it is not just a case of getting people to talk – this must come about naturally.

Further to that, it is not just what people say to each other, as this is often not a true reflection of how they feel or how they will behave – instead, much more important to consider is what people do. All significant actions of a business and/or product should therefore generate interaction between individuals. The surest way to generate consistent and long-term C2C influence is to be interesting and authentic.

In a nutshell, Herd teaches us that

• People follow people, not rules – Social influence drives behaviour more than rational decision-making.
• Word of mouth is critical – Recommendations from peers strongly affect adoption and loyalty.
• Brands are social objects – Products succeed when they facilitate connection and conversation.
• Behaviour spreads in networks – Understanding social networks helps predict trends and adoption patterns.
• Mass marketing is less effective than influencing hubs – Targeting influential connectors can amplify impact more than blanket campaigns.
• Observation over assumption – Focus on real-world behaviour and interactions, not just stated preferences.