The pictures below show two identical videos, which were posted on the same account on two different days. The number of likes for one is over 1,000, and the other is 730,000. Why is the difference so big?

1. Why is there such a big difference in likes?

The essential difference between the two videos is the difference between goal intention and implementation intentions. What is the difference between them?

Goal intentions simply state what the end point of the goal process is, whereas implementation intentions refer to the exact behavioral plan that an individual will carry out in a particular situation.

Implementation intention is also known as "if-then" planning. "If" is associated with situational clues and "then" is associated with goal-oriented behavior, that is, if I encounter situation X, I will take action Y to achieve goal Z. Don’t underestimate this “if-then” plan; it can significantly change user behavior and increase the probability of achieving your goals.

Behavioral scientist Katherine Milkman and colleagues conducted a study at a large company that provided free flu shots to employees. In this experiment, all employees who received the vaccine received a reminder letter, but there were differences in their intention to implement the vaccine.

• Group A, notification email, no need for employees to fill in information
• Group B, employees need to write down the date they plan to get vaccinated
• Group C required employees to ask the recipient to write not only the date but also the specific time.

The result is that the completion rate of Group C with a date and time point is 2.7% higher than that of Group B without a time point, and 4.2% higher than that of Group A without a date and time. Therefore, a simple execution intention can significantly increase the possibility of achieving a goal.

Therefore, the difference in the number of likes on the two videos is because one has a clear execution intention, "If you want fishing to no longer be difficult, then remember this mantra", while the other is a typical goal intention with only the goal of "fishing is no longer difficult".

Now that we know that execution intention is important, how do we design execution intention to get users to like it?

2. How to design execution intention?

According to the above definition, we get the formula for execution intention as:

Therefore, designing execution intention means designing two tasks: anticipating the appropriate situation to initiate the behavioral response; and determining the behavioral response that promotes the achievement of the goal.

For example, when designing an execution intention for a “more exercise” goal, the behavior can be set as “taking the stairs instead of the elevator” and the situational cue can be set as “waiting for the elevator at the elevator entrance in the office.” At this point, once he reaches the elevator, he will establish a strong psychological connection and execution intention between the critical situation of waiting for the elevator and the goal-oriented behavior of taking the stairs. So how do you design situations and actions?

The core of designing situations is to ambush similar clues and interest clues

• Similar situation clues: chewing Yida after meals, and only accepting Melatonin as gifts;
• Specific interest clues: drink some Xiangpiaopiao milk tea when you are a little hungry or sleepy, drink Red Bull when you are tired or sleepy, etc.

Let’s look at two types of clues provided in a popular product promotion video:

Similar clues include: if "fat people look like cicada pupa when wrapped in clothes" / if "fat people often can't lose weight" Interest clues include: if "you want to have a waist without showing a belly" / if you want to "not show thick arms"

In this product promotion video, 4 key situational feature clues were hidden, and it received 760,000 likes due to its similarity and benefits. The core of design behavior is clear and simple actions and providing a sense of self-efficacy. The actions are clear and simple: buy and put on/match one piece of clothing to provide a sense of self-efficacy: put it on and you will instantly have a waist/match it with clothes and your arms won’t look fat.

Just like the “Remember this mantra” in the fishing video, it not only has a simple call to action but also provides a sufficient sense of effectiveness. After all, who can’t remember a mantra? Many videos provide an action plan such as a formula, a picture, a sentence, an action, etc., which is clear and simple, and can provide users with a sense of self-efficacy.

This is the design of execution intention, which enhances the individual's ability to recognize situational cues by strengthening cognitive memory. Under certain situational or conditional stimulation, the execution intention is automatically/effectively and unconsciously activated, and allows people who have formed the execution intention to act in the expected way, so the number of likes on the video will naturally increase.

But sometimes, we also designed execution intentions, but the results were still mediocre? Why?

3. Factors that influence execution intention?

The more difficult the goal, the more effective the design of implementation intention. In a study on implementation intention, college students were asked to list two goals they wanted to complete during the winter vacation, one of which was difficult to achieve and the other was easy to achieve. For each goal, students had to determine a start time and location to form an implementation intention.

The results show that for easy goals, the presence or absence of execution intention has little effect; but for difficult goals, execution intention has a huge impact, with the completion rate being 62% VS 22%.

Therefore, the difficulty of users' behaviors towards videos, such as likes, favorites, forwardings, comments, and purchases, increases successively, and the effectiveness of designing execution intentions also increases successively. While the fishing video received 730,000 likes, it also brought in 110,000 favorites and forwardings. It is precisely because of the high enough favorite and forwarding rate that the video's high playback volume and high like volume were pushed up. Therefore, execution intention is an amplifier in Douyin's algorithm mechanism.

The more internally driven the goal, the more effective the design execution intention.

Case from Efficiency Rocket

The British Journal of Health Psychology once conducted a study in which they divided 250 people into three groups and tested the action probabilities of different groups under different conditions.

The first group was told to exercise for the next two weeks, while the second group was also asked to watch a motivational video showing the benefits of exercise.

The third group, based on the previous two groups, was asked to write a paragraph like this: "The long night is coming, and I will start watching from now on until I die. I will not marry, give up land, or have children", "I will exercise for at least 20 minutes at X time and X place."

In the end, the execution ratios of the three groups who exercised within two weeks were: 38% VS 35% VS 91%. A simple written commitment made exercise gradually become an internally driven goal for users, and a clear execution intention brought about a greater difference in results.

Therefore, if you want users to take action, you need to find their internal driving goals and design clear execution intentions. The lower the self-awareness of a person, the more effective the design implementation intention.

People who engage in creation often say that they must have inspiration to write, so when they are creating, they always find excuses to procrastinate and have low self-awareness.

But a study shows that giving creative people clear execution intentions can not only lead to higher levels of creativity, but also more inspiration and better quality.

The study divided university professors into three groups:

The first group was forbidden to write, the second group could only write when they were inspired, and the third group was forced to schedule 50 writing times and was required to finish writing within the specified time regardless of whether they wanted to write or not. The results showed that the third group wrote 3.5 times more pages than the second group, while the second group wrote only slightly more than the first group.

What about the quality?

Those who were forbidden to write had a new idea every 5 days, those who were waiting for inspiration to come had a new idea every 2 days, and those who had a fixed writing time had a new idea every 1 day. So, people who were given time to write (i.e., implementation intentions) not only wrote more, but they wrote more creatively!

So on Tik Tok, even if the content of the video is good enough, if you don’t ask users to like it, many people may just swipe away. So many times, it is effective for the broadcaster to say, “I worked so hard to make this video, shouldn’t you give me a like?”

To summarize, today I shared with you 1 formula (the formula for execution intention), 2 dimensions (situational cues and behavioral actions for designing execution intention), and 3 factors (goal difficulty/goal driving method/personality traits that affect the effect of execution intention). When you want users to like, collect, forward, comment, and purchase according to your wishes, please don’t forget to design clear execution intentions.

Author: Xuanshu168

Source: Xuanshu168

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