Herd Behavior

Herd Behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. The term pertains to the behavior of animals in herds, flocks and schools, and to human conduct during activities such as stock market bubbles and crashes, street demonstrations, sporting events, religious gatherings, episodes of mob violence and even everyday decision making, judgment and opinion forming.

Recently an integrated approach to herding has been proposed, describing two key issues, the mechanisms of transmission of thoughts or behaviour between individuals and the patterns of connections between them. It has been suggested that bringing together diverse theoretical approaches of herding behaviour illuminates the applicability of the concept to many domains,[1] ranging from cognitive neuroscience[2] to economics.

You may see many examples of herd behavior in economics. For instance, if a few people begin to sell a certain type of stock, it may lead to a mass selling spree, and panic, and leave the market open to crashing. Similarly, you might look at the behavior in the retail environment on day after Thanksgiving sales. People have been injured in attempting to get to a special item offered at a very good price, when the doors of a store opens and the crowd stampedes in. Such stampedes have also occurred at rock concerts with open seating, where all people try to rush to get the closest seats to the front. These have occasionally had tragic results.

One aspect of herd behavior that is often noted is that the herd is not completely interested in protection of the group. Instead self-interest is a primary motivator. Herd animals, when they fear a predator work to get into the center of the herd so they are less vulnerable, just as people have only self-interest in mind when they knock over others to get to a cheaply sold item, or the front seats of a rock concert; or even more so when they start selling or purchasing stocks to either make a profit or make an investment that will prove profitable in the very near future.

Such things as housing prices can be determined by herd behavior and may be augmented by reports. In 2007 the Santa Rosa, California Press Democrat featured an angry letter to the editor asking them to please not write anything else on the declines in the housing market. The writer was concerned that continued reports were driving the price of his own house down; in other words he feared the herd instincts of others who would panic and try to sell before home prices dropped more, which would only lead to a drop in home prices and a flooded market.

Herd behavior may be called by other names like “mob mentality.” A sudden crisis or a demonstration that gets out of order may be subject to humans “herding” into violent clashes with others. More simply a large group of people herding into a single area can produce panic and stampeding, riots, violence, and huge death tolls.

Books or Paper about Herd Behavior on Amazon.com

Herd Behavior: Herd behavior, Stock market bubble, Crowd psychology, Anxiety, Bandwagon effect, Collective behavior, Collective consciousness, Collective effervescence, Collective intelligence

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. The term pertains to the behavior of animals in herds, flocks, and schools, and to human conduct during activities such as stock market bubbles and crashes, street demonstrations, sporting events, religious gatherings, episodes of mob violence and even everyday decision making, judgment and opinion forming.

How to use Group think and Herd behavior to promote your event successfully?

When it comes to event and events networking attendance, people behave the same way worldwide: they hate to go alone to event regardless of the intrinsic quality of the event; they hate to go to event where they don’t know any person or expect to see people like them. It is uncomfortable.

At all the events I have been, I have seen again and again the same pattern: a myriad of groups of friends and connections, like-minded, leaders-followers who feel good and secure to be together. I could easily spot from far away people who came alone. They wander, look/feel alone, and most cases unable to connect to people in group.

What doest this observation means for you, as event organizer or trade show events?
You don’t attract individuals to your events; you attract groups of friends, connected people, leader and followers. Event attendance is a gregarious decision.

The sad story is that most special event marketing plan and execution are well done.
In most cases they succeed to convince a lot of people that your event is great, and compel them to wish to attend. But, You event marketing plan fails when most of people interested in attending don’t find any friend, connection or follower to attend the event with them.

There is a central question your event promotion plan should reply to :“How to make it easier for people interested to attend your event to convince their friends, connections and followers to attend too?”

Now, you know where to look to improve your event promotion. Here are some tips for you:

• Target people when they are in group
• Talk about your event as a community event = People like you are attending (make sure your know very well your target audience)
• High profile attendee tend to attract their followers. If you can ask Will Smith to show off, book the biggest stadium in your country
• Ask people to come with friends, to invite friends and people they know to come. Be specific when asking. Below, is a great way to word your event, and ask for peer to peer referral: