I recently read Sally Hogshead’s Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation and I was surprised how much I liked it! I know that sounds horrible but it is reality;). I figured that it was just going to be an industry book that was just going to be encouraging connection and branding. I was pleasantly surprised that it was so much more than that! Sally Hogshead does a fabulous job of looking at what fascinates us both as individuals and as a society. She takes us on both a historical and study based journey through the 7 triggers of fascination that ends with a fabulous process of application!

The book is split into 3 parts. The first section is called Fascinate or Fail and Hogshead takes an over view at fascination starting with sex & faces then going to media markets and being personally fascinating.

Then in section 2 Hogshead broke down the 7 triggers to fascination: lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, power, vice and trust. She analyzed how to use or not use the triggers. It is, ok I will say it, fascinating!

Then section 3 is the practical application! It helps you to evaluate what you have and want. Then, there is the deployment with what you need to tweak. It is followed up with the Kelton Fascination study.

So the over view sounds great, right? But personally I can say it is very effective. It has given me a new viewpoint on my blogging voice. In real life I have a strong personality but I play it super safe on my blogs. So I have become a tepid influence without a real strong following. Fascinate has given me a new direction on how to best leverage my opinions and voice to develop a faithful readership. I can’t wait to apply all I have learned and reap the rewards of reading a good book!

(This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. As always, while they may have motivated the subject all opinions are my own!)