Berger & Milkman (2012), Journal of Marketing Research — practical usefulness independently predicts content virality even after controlling for emotion

Claim: Berger & Milkman (2012), Journal of Marketing Research: practical usefulness independently predicts virality / social transmission even after controlling for emotion. People share useful information partly for self-enhancement (it makes them look knowledgeable).

Source: Berger & Milkman (2012), JMR.

Confidence: Verified (peer-reviewed).

Why this matters for Candid: Independent academic anchor for the linkable-assets argument (Moz Beginner's Guide to Link Building — "all link-building campaigns must start with something worth linking to; very difficult to build links to low-value webpages", Ahrefs (Hardwick, 2018/2020) — "online tools and calculators have the potential to attract a LOT of links" because they solve a problem people are already talking about, making linking to your tool a natural next step). Practical utility is the through-line — tools earn shares + links because they are useful and the sharer looks helpful for sharing them.