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

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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.

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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.