Author: Nir Eyal
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Reviewer: Dan Roche, marketing director, Olive Communications
The sub-header for this book could as well be ‘how not to build a crap app.’ It focuses on the social networking sites that have been most successful over the past few years, primarily the usual suspects of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.
While there’s no reference to the more B2B-friendly LinkedIn, what Nir Eyal does well is break down why these mega sites have been successful, and from that construct a framework that developers or product marketers could adapt for success.
In order to ‘hook’ people, he suggests, you need a magical combination of trigger, action, variable reward and finally, investment. It’s a nicely constructed model, and reading this book will provide insight into the psychology of the individual, and the way they can be encouraged to alter existing behaviours or preferences.
The increasing focus on emotion in B2B marketing also means this book is worth reading if your current campaigns have an empathy-deficit.
However, Hooked feels lightweight when compared to a couple of other books (which the author seems heavily influenced by), namely Daniel Kahneman’s Nobel Prize-winning Thinking, Fast and Slow, and the 30-year-old bestseller, Influence, by Robert Cialdini. Neither of those were written so explicitly with the marketer in mind, but arguably are more powerful because of it.
B2B marketers face the challenge that their target audience is usually very specifically defined, and far smaller than the audience for a social media app, which could literally include anyone.
So while Eyal’s case study-led approach as to the qualities of the big consumer social networks confer some quick and easy learnings, if you’re looking for something more substantive, thought provoking and actionable on the subject of human emotion and buyer psychology, I recommend the two aforementioned titles ahead of this one.
Star Rating: 3/5
