Posted: October 30th, 2008 | Author: Duncan Brown | Filed under: influence | Tags: influence, Nilofer Merchant, social media | 1 Comment »
Rubicon Consulting has written a white paper based on research conducted on US-based web users. Rubicon is run by Nilofer Merchant, with whom I worked in compiling case studies for the book.
There are some important points to pull out from the study. It finds that those people that regularly post reviews and comments are not your average customer, but enthusiasts (or enthusiastic detractors). Some firms may decide that these folk exist at the extreme ends of the customer spectrum, are not typical of general customer, and can therefore be ignored.
This is a mistake: although average customers don’t post reviews they do read them. Importantly, product reviews drive product purchases, so ignoring the review posters is dangerous. As the paper concludes:
“The most frequent contributors are the influencers, and they have a strong influence on purchase decisions because they write most of the online recommendations and reviews.”
This means that firms can’t ignore frequent contributors, but they have to talk to them in a different way to ‘normal’ customers. This is music to my ears, echoing Influencer50’s own mantra of “Don’t pitch to influencers.”
Other findings I picked out include:
- Approaches that work well in one type of community may fail utterly in another. Confirmation of the ‘horses for courses’ guide to influence ecosystems.
- Confirmation of the 90-9-1 rule: 90% of users are lurkers, 9% of users contribute from time to time, and 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions.
- Influence of product reviews varies by category. You’re more likely to use an online review to buy a digital camera than you are to choose a doctor. (I’m relieved to hear this!)
- Online discussion is theatre: “Web discussion is a performance in which a small group of people interact with each other, and with companies, for the benefit, education, and amusement of everyone else.” Understand this and it shapes your entire approach to online communities.
There is a ton of other information on web usage in the US, which makes interesting reading. For example, the research finds that web users are more likely to vote Democratic. That should be an interesting theory to check in the coming week…
Posted: May 2nd, 2008 | Author: Duncan Brown | Filed under: influence, measurement, social media | Tags: influence, Pollara, social media | No Comments »
So says Pollara, a Canadian research firm. Nice headline. Except what the research says is that online influencers (bloggers, social media users, etc) have less clout than real world influencers. And that’s in consumer markets.
This is evidence of a vocabulary drift that now equates influencers with bloggers. It’s symptomatic of a lack of thought over what influencers are and how they work. The fact that a blog gets a lot of hits has no bearing on its influence. Why? Because influence is subject-specific. Hugh McLeod may have influence in social media, wine and suits, but none (as far as I know) in cars, scotch and pets.
The biggest issue I have in the influence of bloggers is that most bloggers that have any influence at all do so over other bloggers. The area that bloggers have most influence, as a group, is blogging and social media.
Most claims of the influence of social media are generic. They talk about the influence on “products” or “brands” or “services”. But this is meaningless when trying to understand the influence on purchase decisions in favour of a specific product or brand or service.
Which is what matters to marketers.
Posted: December 13th, 2007 | Author: Duncan Brown | Filed under: PR, influencer identification, social media | Tags: influencer identification, PR, Reuters, social media, Society for New Communications Research | No Comments »
Reuters reports that US PR companies are struggling to identify social media influencers, because they are using criteria out of step with the social networks being influenced. PR companies think quality of content, relevance and search engine rankings are important in influencing social media users. Social media users in fact value participation levels (e.g. number of comments), frequency of posting, and name recognition of the individual.
Two key points here:
Firstly, PR is out of step with its target audience, and the research by Society for New Communications Research is therefore very timely. Importantly, PR firms under-estimate the value of engagement in influencing through social media.
Secondly, I think the study shows that influence itself is a social phenomenon, whether exerted through social media or via more traditional channels. A great way to engage with your target audience is to engage with its influencers, but this has to be done in an appropriate social context.
That’s why establishing communities of influencers works well. We say often at Influencer50 that influencers love to influence, but they also love to interact with other influencers – that how they get much of their influence in the first place. Firms that facilitate this interaction are much valued – like the CMO Council.
Posted: October 16th, 2007 | Author: Duncan Brown | Filed under: analysts, blogging, influence, social media | Tags: analysts, blogging, Carter Lusher, case studies, influence, influencer engagement, Influencer Marketing - the book, James Governor, Richard Holway, social media | 4 Comments »
Carter Lusher, AR head at HP and ex-Gartner analyst, posts on the use of social media by analyst firms (synopsis: not enough) and wonders on the impact of blogging on influence from analysts. Great issues.
The current position, as I see it, is that bloggers have relatively little influence on CIO-level execs and business folk. They do, however, have influence in the more techie arenas. Big generalisations, of course, but it seems to hold for most markets, and makes a reasonable starting hypothesis. Demographics are also an important feature of socila media’s reach (but this may be changing: if The Archers are podcasting, anyone can…). Country differences also exist (e.g. France is generally more blog-friendly…).
It’s important to recognise that bloggers are often influential because of their “day job” and just happen to blog nowadays. Richard Holway is a good example. Blogging is a means of access, and it allows previously inaccessible people to gain exposure. So you find DBAs and developers emerging as influential bloggers - their influence is expanded out to the web, beyond the confines of their employers.
In researching case studies for the book, I discovered that blogging and other social media need to be dedicated activities, with time and budget allocated. Otherwise it’s just dabbling, as Carter points out in IDC’s approach.
The key question is always, influential on whom? If analysts are trying to influence CIOs then there is no immediate need to blog, because CIOs generally don’t read them. James Governor is successful because he aims at the more techie audience, and is thus more influential on that audience.
The trick, then, is to monitor blog readership closely, and to respond when the sitation changes.
Posted: August 10th, 2007 | Author: admin | Filed under: social media | Tags: Eric Kintz, measurement, Peter Kim, social media | No Comments »
I’m getting into the evolution of social media and its influence, driven partly by research for the book, and partly through trying to understand what (if any) social media I should be using to engage Influencer50’s market.
Following on from emerging measurement criteria, Eric Kintz points us to Peter Kim at Forrester, who has suggested a model of personas that we adopt when using various social media. I don’t think the model s complete or static but it’s a good start to understanding how folk use social media, now and in the future.
What’s interesting is that much of the debate seems to exist in a post-LinkedIn world. Am I right in sensing that the social media gurus see LinkedIn as passe? Is FaceBook its successor?
It’s always refreshing to talk to “real” people doing what I’d call proper jobs. Selling stuff, making stuff, marketing stuff*, etc. They use LinkedIn all the time, and will continue to use it because of the investment they put into it. They are not nearly as fashion-conscious when it comes to social media as social media commentators are. As always, the “gurus” have to show the way, but the majority is just fine with the status quo.
*Disclaimer: describing marketing as a proper job is highly subjective. Read this to see whether your marketing career qualifies as “proper” (registration required).
Posted: July 18th, 2007 | Author: admin | Filed under: measurement, social media | Tags: David Brain, influence, James Governor, LinkedIn, measurement, social media | No Comments »
You may have detected from this blog that I’m less than convinced by the hype over Web 2.o and it’s impact on influence. Certainly, from our research work for clients, blogs rarely feature as a key influencer.
Part of my problem is that the degree of influence is asserted, measured by the number of links or some other dubious metric. So I’m intrigued by an emerging method of determining the influence of blogs and other social media such as FaceBook and LinkedIn. Hat tip to James Governor who linked to David Brain’s sixtysecondview blog. David runs Edelman PR in the UK, but otherwise seems a good chap…
David’s idea is to measure not only the links that one gets on a blog, but also the links on LinkedIn, friends in FaceBook, Twitter friends, Flickr photo uploads, Diggs and other social media activities. The concept is premised on the trend for people to have more than one social tool in use. Sheesh – I can barely keep up with blogging.
I can’t help thinking that for all its diligence in tracking the various media it’s still measuring links, and links don’t necessarily imply influence. My beef with the links=influence assertion is that it’s easy to fake links, and that links are only a measure of one dimension of influence – connectedness. There are other dimensions, such as expertise, that are much harder to measure. And what about the value of particular connections? Connections are not equal – I know who matters more to me in my LinkedIn network.
But David’s composite score does help because it evens out some of the biases that would be present in just one social tool. By measuring half a dozen or so, an average score emerges.
What I find worrying is that in order to demonstrate and exert influence through social media one has to use multiple formats. I could spend all my time doing just that, but I have a proper job as well. Those that have time to keep up with the social media demands of influence run the risk of ignoring the other dimensions of influence. Plus the most important risk of all, which is forgetting who, why and how they are trying to influence in the first place.
Today’s state-of-the-art influence modus operanda is one-to-one communication, by meeting people face-to-face, telephone conversations and email. In that order. Social media is a distant fourth at the moment.
Posted: July 4th, 2007 | Author: Duncan Brown | Filed under: social media | Tags: Andrew Keen, Chris Anderson, James Governor, long tail, social media, Wisdom of Crowds | 2 Comments »
James at Redmonk posts on Andrew Keen’s book The Cult of the Amateur. Keen’s point is, in a nutshell, that user-generated content is inferior to that of professionals. So we take risks by using social media sources as reference points – Wikipedia and its (allegedly) dodgy content is the oft-cited example.
James contrasts Keen’s theory with Chris Anderson’s Long Tail and suggests that a “long tail of authority” will emerge as the credibility of professional authorities diminishes.
Hmmm. A “long tail of authority” sounds like an oxymoron to me. We use third parties to replace experience we ourselves don’t have. For trivial needs (which toothpaste to buy) we defer to just about anyone (spouse, sales assistant, person also browsing for toothpaste, etc). But for more important decisions we tend to use more verifiable sources. It’s not just authority that’s important – accountability is also vital is such decisions. Which is why we pay professionals, and why professional need indemnity cover.
By definition (I think), authority in any market is concentrated in the “short head.” It’s a scarce resource. Social media helps to distribute authority but doesn’t help create it.
As always, the truth is in the middle somewhere. There’s no doubt that social media has enabled some new authorities to emerge (James is a good example, top rated analyst blog). But there’s also a huge amount of dross being generated. Telling the two apart can be difficult for the uninitiated.
(As an aside, the analyst industry is professional nowadays but wasn’t always so. In my early years at Ovum (mid 90s) we often referred to ourselves as enthusiastic amateurs writing on subjects we (at first) knew little about. Specialisation and professionalism have changed this – I wonder if we’re heading towards full circle…)
Posted: June 22nd, 2007 | Author: admin | Filed under: influencer engagement, influencer marketing, measurement, social media | Tags: Alice LaPlante, influence, InfoWeek, myths, social media | No Comments »
Infoweek has a well-balanced article on the impact of social media on influence. I suggest you read it. While I don’t disagree with the analysis, the article highlights three key misunderstandings about the nature of influence.
The first is that influence on social media is somehow different to influence in the real world. Everybody these days seems to have a Web 2.0 centric view of the world. The hype reminds me of the “New Economy” – and we all know what happened to that. Social media is being overstated, and the influence of those participating in it is also overstated. Remember that only 6% of communication occurs on line – the lion’s share of interaction remains staunchly in the real world with face-to-face conversations.
The second misunderstanding in the article relates to the disappointing results of influencer outreach programmes. All of the activities discussed in the article targeted consumer influencers. But in fact the most important influencers in consumer markets are not consumers – they are retailers and distributors, consultants and professional advisers, lawyers and doctors. You can target these people, because they are easily identified, and you can measure their impact (if you’ve given them some tools of influence).
The final issue with the article is the assumption that links are equal to influence: the more link the greater the influence. Wrong. Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point identified three types of influencer (connectors, mavens and salesmen) – why does everyone want to be (or target) connectors? Connectors are necessary but not sufficient to influencer prospects. Only 3% of people are true connectors – the rest are link gatherers. In fact, we see that salesmen (persuaders) are the most effective influencers on decision makers.
There are several other myths of influence which I’ll be addressing in coming weeks. Unless these myths are challenged they will choke the notion that influencers can be identified and reached.
Posted: September 26th, 2006 | Author: admin | Filed under: influencer marketing, influencers | Tags: Analyst Influence Is Diminishing, bloggers, Charlene Li, influencer marketing, influencers, social media, Stephen Baker, Stowe Boyd, Unicom conference Social Network Tools | 5 Comments »
At the recent Unicom conference on Social Network Tools, I showed a chart illustrating the declining influence of analysts and journalists on IT decision makers (ITDM). The chart also showed the recent increase in influence of bloggers. The chart caused a bit of a stir.
Our research shows that the average ITDM apportions no more than 45% of influence to analysts and journalists. The remaining influence is spread over numerous influencer types. Bloggers show the biggest increase, from zero in 2004 to 8% in 2006.
Stowe Boyd, a blogging guru, claimed in the conference that in the US the influence of blogs now exceeds that of analysts and journalists. Can this be true?
Firstly, there is some overlap between the two communities. For example, Forrester’s Charlene Li and Business Week’s Stephen Baker have highly rated blogs. It will be interesting to watch the transition from traditional analyst/journalists media (reports, newspapers, etc) to blogs.
Secondly, from my (so far, limited) look at blogs, the main audience for bloggers is … other bloggers. Are ITDMs reading blogs? Do CEOs read blogs? Or are they still influenced by more traditional sources? Clearly it depends on the individual and the market. But my thinking is that the influence of blogging is limited, other than within the blogosphere.
Finally, are we seeing the emergence of a truly new type of influencer – the blogger? Or are we seeing the use of a new medium (the blog) which allows existing influencers to become more obvious?
My sense is that blogging and other social networking tools are similar to the worldwide web in the mid-1990s. Those businesses that colonised the early web pioneered the new media, worried the old guard and promised to the change the business world (remember the “New Economy”?). But most early adopters failed, and the web became a mainstream tool for all – nearly every business now has a web site.
So blogging will, in time, be done by everyone (or every business). It’s this interim, disruptive time that makes blogging interesting now. Geoffrey Moore would say that blogging is in “the chasm,” – blogging is about to climb out into mainstream adoption. And its distinct influence will dissipate accordingly.
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