Thanks to Guy Kawasaki for once again highlighting research being done into the dynamics of influencers in his blog post today. There is this debate out there in the blogsphere about who really counts - the highly connected influencer or the regular guy or gal who knows a bunch of people and talks to them on a regular basis? New research, by Duncan Watts and now CNET, is challenging the "traditional view" that a few highly connected influencers hold the key to market opinion. The research seems to show that there's more to it than that.
Hello? Duh.
Maybe I've been in a backwater for the last 20 years of my marketing career, but who says "the traditionalists" stop marketing after they've reached the influencers? I think there's some great information in this new research and recommend that everyone go and read it, but I don't necessarily agree with the implication that it somehow invalidates years of marketing theory, if anything it validates it. Specifically:
- The Influencer Marketing Plan should always be one of many channel strategies integrated into a larger promotional strategy that includes the customer - who has always been the most desirable Word of Mouth (WoM) advocate anyway. This is why a highly connected influencer like Walter Mossberg is so valuable. Not only is he paid to reach millions of other highly desirable consumers, but he (and his staff now) goes out of his way to use the toys he writes about, making him more credible than a lot of tech reviewers out there. Will Walter Mossberg always be important to a consumer tech marketing plan? You bet. If you can reach some of his more enthusiastic his readers/product-brand champions at the same time you reach him, should you? Go for it. (Just be sure your product is awesome - you might be able to have a conversation with Mossberg about it's drawbacks that mitigates a total slam in his column, whereas many of the others with whom you have a less personal relationship maybe be less knowledgeable or forgiving.)
- In a Media 1.0 world it was expensive to reach the larger
middle section of influencers and thus more cost effective to reach
them by targeting the "more connected" few at the beginning of your campaign. The fact that we can now reach the second tier - the larger tier - of moderately connected influencers doesn't invalidate the fact that the highly connected and visible folks have influence, it only reinforces what we've always known, that people are influential in their own circles and the more people talk about you the better. That's what Word of Mouth (WoM) marketing is always about and always has been.
- Media 2.0 changes the economics of this reality - because now it costs the about the same to reach the highly
connected people as it does to reach the moderately connected. This isn't a change in human behavior or our understanding of it, it's a change in the opportunity that Word of Mouth in Social Media (WomiSoM) brings us. Now we can dramatically expand our WoM reach at no (dramatically) greater expense. Cool. Let's do it. [Note: This "no increase in cost" statement is only partially true to the extent that there is a variable cost in maintaining each individual influencer relationship no matter how connected or unconnected they are. If your influencer strategy includes personal relationships, which is should to some degree, there will be some natural limit on how much you can scale it without the quality of the relationship management suffering.]
- Let's look at what the research tells us:
- that most "influencers" (of all levels of connectivity) are motivated by a desire to share information and help others;
- they are interested in multiple subjects; and
- that they value information that is "unique and trusted."
What I find interesting about this information is that it tells us that much of what we know about marketing to the top tier of highly connected influencers applies to the larger segment of moderately connected people too. This is good news because it doesn't mean we change our tactics as much as expand our concept of the target. We still have to give them relevant information that's accurate and validated so they won't look bad if they pass it on, and we have to make it easy for them so they will and can pass it on.
The CNET research draws this conclusion by recommending, "packaging creative in a way that is easy to forward and share" (p. 8). See my last post for ideas about how to provide them information to easily enable WoMiSoM. The Social Media Press Release is a start in this direction, but I don't think it goes far enough for reasons I articulate there.
Is this rocket science? Nope. Just plain old marketing. What's all the fuss about?
