The Value of Influencers: Why They Are Still Relevant for Marketing Campaigns
Who are the best people to approach when you want to promote your business? Common sense and experts would tell you to reach out to individuals with wide social connections or influence, because these people can affect the behavior of many others.
Their reputation allows your message to resonate more deeply within communities and hence spread more efficiently.
So instead of trying to reach the general populace, you focus on connecting with a select group of influencers, the ones that are knowledgeable, well-connected and persuasive. Let them sway the minds of others.
But not everyone agrees with this theory. Duncan Watts, a network theory scientist, has suggested that these influencers do not play a special role in starting or encouraging trends, and you shouldn’t spend money marketing through them.
Instead, he suggests that the ordinary individual is equally relevant and effective when you are looking to spread an idea or promote your business:
A trend’s success depends not on the person who starts it, but on how susceptible the society is overall to the trend–not how persuasive the early adopter is, but whether everyone else is easily persuaded.
“If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start one–and if it isn’t, then almost no one can,” Watts concludes.To succeed with a new product, it’s less a matter of finding the perfect hipster to infect and more a matter of gauging the public’s mood. Sure, there’ll always be a first mover in a trend. But since she generally stumbles into that role by chance, she is, in Watts’s terminology, an “accidental Influential.”
And if you agree with this theory, you should alter your promotional strategies:
Cascades require word-of-mouth effects, so you need to build a six-degrees effect into an ad campaign; but since you can never know which person is going to spark the fire, you should aim the ad at as broad a market as possible–and not waste money chasing “important” people.
It is important to note that Watt suggested that his findings do not mean to say that influencers are not important but rather, the assumption that some individuals are more important than others must be examined and tested rigorously.
Watt’s findings are outlined in greater detail in his academic paper “Influentials, Networks and Public Opinion Formation” which concludes with the following:
In focusing on the properties of a few “special” individuals, the influentials hypothesis is in some important respects a misleading model for social change…there is nothing special about those individuals, either in terms of their personal characteristics or their ability to influence others. Thus whatever influence these individuals exert on the collective outcome is an accidental consequence of their randomly assigned position in the queue.
This means that viral ideas, products or trends are unpredictable. Their popularity and success is randomly attributed to an individual influencer in retrospect. Watts suggests that in reality, market readiness is a far more important factor.
The entire report can be found in PDF format at this link so feel free to read the article and/or the report if you’re interested in learning more.
Why the Influentials Theory Remains Important for Marketers
Image Credit: the exit stops here
Watt’s findings were derived from the use of computer models and simulated individuals who operated within controllable situations. Personally, I thought the research methods seemed disjointed from the conclusion.
These clinical scenarios are stripped of reality. When you take something as unpredictable as human agency and quantify it into percentages and ratios, you’re only measuring the surface. Idea infection goes beyond how messages disperse from one body to another. What matters is the depth of brand infiltration.
Was the message retained in the minds of customers and how strongly did it affect them? To what extent did the influencer deepen the trust that existing customers have for the brand? These are important questions to ask when you are talking about word-of-mouth and the use of influencers as promotional proxies.
Remember this: Influencers are not only viral agents, they are brand enhancers.
How do you or can you even measure influence? When everything you see is the result of hundreds of different causes, its hard to pinpoint the exact point when something moves from A to B or because of A, to B.
A recommendation from a person you respect might trigger a purchase a year after you’ve first heard it. Perhaps you’ve seen mass-market ads on the television for the specific brand. Maybe a few acquaintances recommended it or the product was endorsed by a favorite celebrity. They all add up over time to influence your decision.
Which of these factors clinched the deal? What made you spread the word? This collection of myriad causes is unworkable. This is why it’s difficult to marketers to explain how influence is exactly responsible for customer behavior.
Image Credit: built to heaven
Marketers have to situate ‘influence’ within a result-centric influencer model (how many conversions from a referrer, revenue gained v.s. ad cost etc.) because it’s measurable and justifiable. It makes sense to target individuals who are more highly visible and familiar to others. Not just trend-starting sense but branding sense.
Consistent brand development increases sales and conversions over the long run by enhancing the value of the product. For example, celebrities lend their names to products and this association of glamor develops the perceived worth of merchandise.
In the case of U.S. Presidential candidate Barack Obama, Oprah and Ted Kennedy’s endorsement gave him more supporters. Why? Because of reputation transference.
Obama’s brand is enhanced by endorsements from people trusted by others. It’s not just about the extra votes he’ll get for his Presidential campaign but how existing supporters will trust him even more and become stronger advocates for his cause.
Word of mouth truly accelerates when people are passionately engaged, when they are true believers in the product/brand they are promoting. And that in short, is why the influentials theory continues to be one that is useful and relevant for marketers.
In the end, influencers are not just attributable catalysts for trends, they are remarkably powerful ways to develop market trust and visibility for your brand.
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I notice you didn’t mention the concept of readiness or receptiveness to new ideas, like the conditions for a “forest fire”, in much detail. This is one aspect of the randomness that allows the unknown individual to spread an idea, no?
Fantastic breakdown Maki.
While an essential characteristic of a good marketer and/or trend-setter is perceiving social need and therefore delivering at the precise moment, it will never be the case in a large or even small society that those with numerous connections and influence won’t be needed.
The smart person waits for the need and then delivers the solution via highly palatable influencers.
I can see both points. Getting the attention of influencers is a huge boost for a brand, but enough people talking about something can deliver a similar effect. But It’s awfully hard to get enough people talking without the influencers.
Hi Maki. I can see where Watts’ stance is going and I agree somewhat about influencers not playing a special role, but only in the long run as well as only in some degree. We should look a little deeper into other variables when estimating influencer relevancy, such as, at what point of the product’s time frame you will be analyzing, the intelligence & type of the audience, and ultimately the strength of the product. It’s the old garbage in, garbage out saying…If you produce a mediocre product, you will have similar results marketing it, no matter what influencers you have “enhancing” the product. Obviously influencers have some importance. Like you said, it’s hard to measure the depth of influence since it’s not a clear, quantifiable unit per se…which is a key flaw to Watt’s theory. I likened how you gave the example of Oprah and Ted Kennedy endorsing Obama, however I must disagree about how powerful influencers are in developing market trust (On the other hand, I completely agree with the influencer affecting visibility and being a catalyst.), because in my opinion, it really boils back to the strength of the product. You brought up a good point when explaining that consistent development of a brand will result in sales/conversions. You also mentioned in the end of your post about word of mouth and how it can spread fast if the promoter is actively engaged and such. Surely they can promote and defend the product, if it is indeed a great product. If it’s an inferior product (with no consistent development) however, it’s a different story. So while I agree that in general, influencers are still (and most probably will always be) relevant to todays marketing campaigns, I also tend to think that they are not as important as most consider them to be, since their relevancy depends on several other factors in today’s swift-changing market.
I believe you are right on target. Influencers as brand enhancers and viral marketers are, well, extremely influential. While the study has relegated the human interaction value into metrics, I believe it misses how things work in the retail world. Given that many small businesses and retail merchants do not have the budget to reach “as wide an audience as possible, they do have the opportunity to identify, connect and encourage their best customers to virally promote their business. Viral marketing from influencers may provide better “reach” than an expensive advertising campaign.
This is interesting DoshDosh. I read something about it on Seth Godin’s blog, but you’re going into a lot more detail here. What you’re saying sounds reasonable.
This is an absolutely brilliant article. The assumption that influential people are the ones who cause us all to buy things is insulting.
How many people wait to buy a handbag until they see whether Kate Moss is going to have one, or avoid reading a new book, until some famous blogger recommends it? Probably very few.
In fact, it’s probably those who buy last who are influenced more by celebrities. And as you say, by then they’ve probably heard about the product in various different places.
I think ordinary people can be just as persuasive and effective with the people within their circle of influence. But influencers have a much larger circle.
Thanks! You alsways motivate me to more and do it better. I believe word of mouth is a major key in most marketing plans. - Even look at the super bowl ads. They really want us talking about their ads - even if just for a day or two. But here is the age old question how to your find the “accidental influencer” Is the answer to promote, teach, share, sell to everyone and you will find the infuencers?
Have to disagree with you on this one Maki.
The influencers you mentioned (Opra, Kennedy) are Mega-Influencers and their endorsement is the equilavant of a full blown advertising campaign.
If you factor this out of the equation, you’re only left with the level of the contagiousness of the message as opposed to brand quality of the influencer.
And when non-mega-influencers are involved, their rule (IMO) is to get the message to a critical level of exposure. From that level the message will spread only as fast and as wide as it is contagious, without negative or positive contribution from the original influencer’s brand quality.
For example, a mediocre idea might easily get to the home page of Digg if MrBabyMan submitted it, but it won’t get a mass co-citations.
On the other hand, if I were to submit a brilliant article to Digg. It would have a much harder time getting to the homepage, but from there on it will spread like fire.
I agree that influencers play a big role in making an individual support a product or brand; but a recommendation from an ordinary individual, specially if he or she is within the social sphere of the person, is more powerful and influential.
This is the reason why not all television commercials have big name stars but also a good number, maybe more, use “anonymous actors” to play the role of their target market, endorsing the product.
Furthermore, I think that this is also the reason why a lot of advertisers use ordinary bloggers to review their products (i.e, PayPerPost) because it gives a more personal invitation, and perhaps more convincing power.
@Mark,
I did mention that market readiness was a key factor to Watts but didn’t go into it in detail because it leads to a lot of other questions.
For instance, how do you determine the readiness of an audience? How do you measure increases or decreases in readiness? Even if you were to do opinion polls, it’ll just be a snapshot that captures an instant.
I’m a little more interested in running with Watt’s assumption that market readiness is important because I’m more interested in examining other benefits of influencers, apart from their ability to start trends.
@ Glun
I definitely agree that the quality of the product is of great importance. I think the endorsement of influencers differentiates the product/brand. It’s a quick way to instantly demonstrate that the product may have value beyond its packaging/appearance.
In a way, this sort of breaches an initial trust barrier… and familiarizes the customer with the brand by leveraging the reputation of the influencer.
To put it this way, many bloggers will try a new widget because it was strongly recommended to them by a popular blogger they trust. But as you’ve said, if another competitor comes up with a better product or if the product quality deteriorates…people will naturally stop using the product in favor or others. So yes, other factors do matter.
Marc,
I think according to Watts, the main question to ask is this: Is the market ready for my product? If the answer is yes, you need to do a mass-market push, which will help you develop a product that sparks a trend.
If you look at the article, you’ll see that Watts himself uses a simple pass-it-on system in ad campaigns so its also important to ensure that your product or idea is distributed in a way that encourages redistribution by users.
@Yoav,
I read your comment a few times but don’t really see what you are disagreeing with. I’m not suggesting that the contagiousness of the message is unimportant. Of course, the quality and framing of the message matters a great deal. Oprah and Kennedy are just examples to show how influencers (mega-or-not) affect EXISTING customers on top of developing traction for an idea/product.
I personally don’t think that the goal of influencers is to simply get the idea/product to the tipping point. My article is to suggest that influencers go beyond that: they adjust market perspectives and enhance the reputation of brands and that’s why they are still important for marketing campaigns.
@ Everyone else
Thanks for your comments!
Interesting research by Watts and I can somewhat understand his perspective. But I don’t think there’s any way you can discount the role influencers play. Social media is the perfect example. Look at the influence Maki and other power users have over Sphinn and other social news sites. Their submissions dominate the front pages, and subsequently the content that most of us read.
Influencers may not be the driving force behind all trends, but that does not mean they are no longer relevant.
Thanks for the post – interesting discussion. For a broader perspective you might find this new book an insightful read - http://www.influencerMarketingBook.com
@Yoav
Does Oprah have influence?
A lot of the discussion on influence gets sidetracked by the allure of the super-influencer, or what I call the ‘Oprah Winfrey distortion’. The argument goes that super-influencers can make or break a product, or a market, by dropping the right or wrong names. Oprah is usually the cited case, where being named to her book club can rocket an author from zero to the top of the bestseller list. In the UK we have the Richard & Judy book club, which is similar in structure, if not in status.
Does Oprah really have influence? If so how does one tap it?
There’s no doubt that appearing on Oprah’s Book Club has a huge effect on a book’s sales. But is this useful information to a marketer or author? It would be useful if the right action to take was to call Oprah and ask her to read an aspiring writer’s novel. Except that isn’t the right thing to do. Why? Because (and here’s the ground-breaking insight) –
***
Oprah doesn’t choose the books.
***
Ms Winfrey heads a production firm called Harpo Productions, which employs a large team of producers and an even larger team of production assistants. This job spec was recently posted by Harpo productions (emphasis is mine):
Supports team and producer in daily production-including answering phone, getting lunch, opening mail, copying scripts and post-show notes, and other administrative duties. Production skills include research/resourcefulness-proficient in Lexis/Nexis, internet searches, DT searches. Must be resourceful in searching for guests, doing research, and obtaining footage. Reads all books considered to be selected with a critical eye. Maintains up-to-date knowledge of publishing industry. Consistently reads new books, searching for potential book club selections. Can suggest titles that are worthy candidates for upcoming selections. Can create system (charts, procedures, etc.) that are specific to the needs of the club/special projects production process. Charts and tracks show production and book selection process and can anticipate deadlines for the team. Must be able to consistently demonstrate solution driven communication. Communicates effectively with all Harpo departments demonstrating respect and professionalism. Team player works consistently to mesh well with supervisor, teammates, other department members and fellow staffers. Good phone etiquette.
If you want to get on Oprah’s Book Club, Oprah is exactly the wrong person to influence. It’s the new Production Assistant and her colleagues. They read the books, and make the decisions. I understand that Oprah reads the chosen book of the month, but that’s probably the only book she’s got time for (is my guess).
Believing that alleged super-influencers like Oprah, or Bill Gates, or David Beckham have real influence over the decisions that affect you and your firm can distort your marketing efforts, and completely misdirect your activities. Better to understand who really influences the decisions, and target those instead.
Of course, it’s much harder to find out who the new Production Assistant is, but that’s why knowledge of real influencers is valuable. It can give you a unique market insight which leads to competitive advantage.
Anything else is just wasting time and money.
@Maki,
I see you caught me on focusing too much on the quality of the product…but I’m quite relieved that you agree with me; That there are other factors involved (However I do understand you were referring to the short term mostly, where my statements were centered around the long.)!
I have a paper which may intrigue you that I would like you to read. I don’t want to go into too much details since I’ve commented my fair share already (lol), but in short, the paper studies the various effects by influencers in a certain marketing-type and it’s responses by a certain large and recently emerging type of audience which you will instantly recognize. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll get back to you.
Hi Maki, gotta say you roll out some of the best blog content I come across. Always consistent and informative.
Great work man.
Regards,
Amir