Communication is not rocket science, one might argue. But it is very much about social psychology.

If you want to be found on the social web, you have to share value, and we know this. However, it seems that sharing is only half the formula for social web success. A distributed presence seems to be equally important, mainly because our search- and click patterns are so irrational. Or dare I say social?

As we have been focusing on social web listening technologies as well as psychographic influence patterns between human beings, it becomes more and more obvious that our behavioural patterns are both emotional and highly irrational.

Looking at the typical online event, it seems that at least half of the audience joins by chance from the never-sleeping real-time web. These opportunistic publics just happened to be online at that time, looking for something interesting, saw something they found engaging, and joined. Your event have to be part of this collective stream-of-consiousness, otherwise you’ll miss out on all the irrational – but still highly engaged! – publics.

Sidetrack: I sat down with the editor of one of the leading business newspapers back in 2002, and she told me that she was somewhat perplexed after reviewing the newspaper’s web stats. She wanted to fascilitate high-quality journalism of course, but if she were to give the online readers what they obvously wanted, their online business edition would be all about Britney Spears and mobile phone reviews. End sidetrack.

So, why do smart people do irrational things? Enter – social psychology.

The PsyBlog lists 10 excellent social psychology studies outlining exactly why:

1. Why You Can’t Help Believing Everything You Read
2. The Truth About Self-Deception
3. How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation
4. Why Groups Fail to Share Information Effectively
5. Why Thought Suppression is Counter-Productive
6. The Chameleon Effect
7. How Other People’s Unspoken Expectations Control Us
8. When Situations Not Personality Dictate Our Behaviour
9. Finding The Surprising Gaps in Your Self-Knowledge
10. Stereotypes: Why We Act Without Thinking

Click on any headline to learn more on a specific theory. Or not.

Jerry Silfwer is a geek and a wired world PR specialist. Follow his irrational activities on Twitter and Linkedin. Or not.