

Ask HN:  Is viral marketing effective for sites/apps with high IQ users? - amichail

I get the impression that smarter people are less likely to recommend a site/app to their friends.<p>Is this so in your experience?<p>If so, what sort of marketing would be effective for high IQ people?
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nostrademons
I get the opposite impression: smarter people are _more_ likely to recommend a
site/app to their friends, both because they tend to have broader circles of
friends and because they like the ego boost that comes from knowing about a
site that their friends didn't.

They're just more discriminating: you have to be genuinely useful, because
they lose face if they recommend a site and their friends try it out and say
"WTF are you telling me about this for? It sucks!" Actually, that applies to
people of all IQs, but smarter people are probably more likely to apply the
"This sucks" label to a site.

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IsaacSchlueter
There are some apps that I do recommend quite a lot. But I don't usually send
an invite without asking first, and I'd _never_ upload my contacts or let you
log into my email to fetch them. I've sold a lot of family and friends on
Aardvark and a few on Twitter, usually face to face.

I'm not as likely to invite all my friends to play some stupid game on
facebook or send them flair for their myspace page; I'm not above playing with
these silly things, but I wouldn't want them spamming me. The difference is
that Aardvark and Twitter actually increase the quality of life of the people
who use them.

To get high IQ people to virally market your app, it just has to reach a
higher standard of quality. It has to actually be worth telling people about.

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hapless
If you discover that smart people will not recommend your application, the
problem doesn't lie in the marketing.

You're barking up the wrong tree.

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lhorie
<http://www.chromeexperiments.com/> comes to mind.

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iterationx
i don't think so. i don't get that impression. nope. flattery.

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onreact-com
What do you mean by "high IQ"? Last time I measured mine at 16 I got an IQ of
120. So do you want to sell to intelligent kids? Or do you actually mean
educated people, intellectuals, early adopters or similar groups? Or do you
mean nerds? High IQ doesn't mean much. You can be a serial killer with a high
IQ.

Viral marketing works for different kinds of people depending on the campaign,
product and desired audience.

