Page 285 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

» Is it possible to develop a relationship with expert influencers online?
Will they care what you think?
You may wonder whether you do even need to track their online activities.
If you’re a marketer in a small business or maybe chief executive officer of a
small business that doesn’t have a formal marketing department, you may
wonder whether they will respond to your tweets, personal Facebook friend
requests, and prodding emails. Those are all valid questions. Social media is
now the great leveler. Social media responses are courted from anyone who
may potentially influence another’s purchase.
» Are you pursuing the wrong list of influencers?

The final thing you may ask yourself is whether you have the right list of
expert influencers. Thanks to the excesses of several mammoth corporations,
we now live in an age in which trust in formal authority is at an all-time low.
Consumers are increasingly distrusting big business and are turning to each
other for advice. The experts that your consumers depended upon when
making purchasing decisions are probably not the same experts that they are
looking toward today.

What does all this mean? Quite simply, it means that you must begin by analyzing
who are the expert influencers affecting brand affinity and purchasing decisions
for your target markets.

In the final analysis, you need to know the following:

» Who these expert influencers are
» Where they are active online

RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE
OF INFLUENCE

Can influence really be that important? Most studies say yes. Research studying the
influence of people who regularly review products was done by University of Rhode
Island business professor Kathleen Ferris-Costa (Marketing Professor at Bridgewater
State University). She found that these reviewers were 50 percent more likely to
influence purchases.

How about social networks? Are people on these networks really influenced? Google did
a study in 2018 that found influencer marketing was considered effective by 92 percent
of the participants. That’s evidence of real influence.

CHAPTER 18 Accounting for the Influencers 269