The Psychology Behind a Like, Follow, and Subscribe?

I can speak for Facebook as thats the medium I do just about all my work in. For Facebook one of the most effective ways to get a like is fangating .. where there is an offer, or special, or something people will want to see behind a fangate. People are much much more likely to like you to get through the gating then they are to just click the like button on your fanpage.

As for the psychology behind this .. I believe it is curiosity.

You know, I think there's quite a few different things that cause people to like or follow someone.

A Solution - Commonly, people are coming online to find a solution to a problem, so if people find an authority expert on a subject where they have a problem, they might follow them to take in every word they say.

Sex - Sex sells.. that's no secret. It's not that many men/women think they have a genuine shot at obtaining that with them but it's the thought of it that makes them want to follow them. Look at Adriana Lima for example, almost 2 million people like her and I doubt a lot of them know what her actual job is rather than just being "hot".

Touching up on Sex.. if you notice, there's two kinds of people on Facebook that get a ton of likes. It's usually funny people and attractive females. An attractive female can put a status like "Having such a good day!" and she'll receive anywhere from 10-50+ likes, but if some random Average Joe posts something like that, he might get a few (if any).

Funny - If someone posts funny statuses/comments all the time, they're going to follow them for the daily laughs. Look at all of the Facebook pages popping up recently that share funny pictures every day and how quickly they obtain likes.

Some people find a personal connection with people and that causes them to follow them and some people follow them out of curiosity because of a friend's recommendation. There's many different reasons. I don't follow a lot of people really, but I do follow:

- A random WoW YouTube channel because he does funny voices and makes funny videos
- Another random WoW YouTube channel because he does voices and he makes a lot of people angry, something about the online trolling he does is amusing in that game
- Kelly Felix's email list because I call it "marketing research." I like seeing some of his sales copies, how he markets and what kind of triggers he uses to get people to dish out their wallet
- Frank Kern because he's as real as it gets when it comes to Gurus. He tells it like it is

I can confidently say, I really don't follow many marketers because essentially, they just want you to buy their crap and that's the ultimate goal is it not?

Corey

I think it's all about trust. Those people who like, follow or subscribe one particular page or site that's mean they trust those pages or sites. Maximum time this amount of trust bring sale. When a site can not sale that means people can't trust those sites.

Hey Justin,

I think a big part of "buying" and "liking" is based
on a part of us all that is concerned with "surviving and replicating"..

Primarily we "buy and like" because we believe it will help
us achieve either of these outcomes or even better, achieve both..

A skilled copywriter can craft words, in a way that they "step on our pain" and
set our survival alarm bells ringing.. Or show the latest shiny object on the
market to be the ultimate aphrodisiac..

"Entranced" we respond by "pulling the trigger" on the credit card..

If this is the case then un-liking and not buying occur because the reader
no longer believes the content will assist achieving these primal drives..

All the best..

With respect to "Follows"/"Unfollows", "Subscribes"/"Unsubscribes, cognitively... with thoughts... someone tells their self, "I should click that button," or "I need to click that button," or something like, "My life will be better if I click that button". Right now I'm thinking, "Once I finish posting this, I need to click that button at the bottom to actually post this." I think that it is sort of like that, but different. Each of us will have a different reasons. And even each individual will likely have different reasons/thoughts/rationals at different times/moments. That is my two cents on the subject.

Reciprocity is the psychological trigger. If you obtain value from reading something for instance you feel a psychological debt to that person, an obligation to repay it.

Those buttons allow you to quickly and easily repay the debt instantly.

I agree with Aegir. I have been known to click the like button just simply because the information I received was very helpful to me. Pressing that like button does seem like a way to 'pay' for the information.