The super-influencers in social spaces

SOCIAL MEDIA   DIGITAL   FACEBOOK

For the past 12 to 18 months "social" has been the most prominent buzzword in the marketing and advertising community.

Most clients want to embark on a "social" journey but are skeptical of negative opinions and lack of control.

Many daring ones look at social as another way to broadcast marketing messages to masses.

Most marketers in Asia are looking at social through the filters of their existing marketing models where reach and frequency rule. In my opinion that is a mistake as marketing in the socially connected world requires different approach.

Social as a concept is not new and it has always existed in marketing - specifically before the adoption of broadcast mediums like television. In the good old days ordinary people referred to opinion leaders and influential people around them before making decisions.

But the power of influencing remained local in a particular group, community or geography. Modern day technology changed that and power of influencing scaled up globally without people or marketers realising it. Now someone somewhere sitting in India can do a negative tweet about a global brand, get tons of re-tweets (based on quality of content and the number of followers) and in no time brand equity erosion can start.

In my opinion social marketing is not about reaching the masses but it is about identifying the super-influencers for your brand, understanding their preferences, respecting their knowledge about your brand, communicating brand message to them and finally enabling them to market your brand to their peer group - what I call the "circle of influence".

A social marketing journey needs to start with "brand sirens" - active brand choice influencers who utilize technology and their social networks to advocate and evangelise about brands and products. Brand Sirens are passionate about brand and they do pay attention to advertising but have much more sophisticated relationship with marketing. They are "schizophrenic" brand loyalists and are receptive to experiential/digital contact points. Marketers need to establish an on-going relationship with them.

Here is an example of behavioural differences between brand sirens and urban youth with respect to luxury category in China and India.

It is evident that brand sirens figure out things on their own and form their own opinions. So when marketing to brand sirens "concept of effective frequency" is redundant.

Because effective frequency (say X+) assumes that the receiver is "not so well informed" and requires at least X repetition of advertising message before the person figures it out. Now imagine the irritation effective frequency must be causing to a brand siren who already knows a lot about the brand.

Brand sirens like sharing opinions and we found that in China, 75% brand sirens tell their circle of influence right away about new products and brands. And that could very well be before the so called "mass media launches" that marketers put so much efforts and money.

Digging deeper on opinion sharing behavior of Brand Sirens highlighted key differences between China and India - largely driven by state of digitisation in both the countries. It is interesting to see instant messaging is the most preferred method of opinion sharing in China and while Indian brand sirens still in-person opinion sharing.

Brand Sirens can be engaged but we need different approach. First and foremost we need to listen to them and respect their opinions as they know a lot more about brands than the brand managers or agencies. Secondly, based on insights gathered from listening, we need to communicate with authenticity and simplicity.

Thirdly we need to create platforms that will enable a Brand Siren to market your brand to his or her circle of influence and get fame. And finally we need to measure the impact of brand sirening through methodologies such as buzz tracking or net promoter score.

This article was first published in the September issue of Marketing