Comment by jorgefreynag

Behavior change at a group level is often driven by sociological forces that start small and build up over time. I highly recommend the work of Damon Centola. His books “Change: How to Make Big Things Happen” and “How Behavior Spreads: The Science of Complex Contagions” are full of stories that help illustrate the concepts he studies. He’s a legit sociologist whose research points to the value of strong ties to help drive persistent adoption and behavior change (whether societal or in product adoption, it’s all based on the same principles).

I would not recommend the works by Jonah Berger that also deal with the same topic, because they are primarily based on marketing observations that are often shallow and misleading. For example, the misinterpretation of the “influencer” phenomenon, whereby he concludes that people who gain a following and become popular online actually help shape behavior. That is often, as we now know, only a fleeting phenomenon more akin to a lottery than anything that drives actual change.

When you really study the ways in which big products like say, Twitter, blew up, you see that they started with a small group of people who loved them. By the time the “influencers” picked up, the product already had a dedicated audience that made it feel “safe” for the popular person to promote them.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy Centola’s work if you check it out. And good luck!