Page 289 - Social Media Marketing for Dummies

The holy grail of social influence marketing is the ability to identify which referent
influencers are most powerful and have the highest impact on brand affinity and
purchasing decisions. After you’ve identified them, the next question is, how does
a marketer reach these referent influencers who surround their customers? They
matter because it has been statistically proven that networked neighbors (or those
consumers linked to prior customers) adopt the service or product at rates three
to five times greater than baseline groups. The research shows that these network
neighbors impact purchasing decisions very directly, too.

The referent influencers themselves break down into two categories, which we
cover next, and differentiating between the two is important.

Anonymous referent influencers

These are everyday people who are extremely active on the social platforms and
blog, upload, comment, rate, and share much more than other consumers who
share their same demographics. By virtue of the volume of their activity on the
various social platforms, the anonymous referent influencers carry weight. Your
customers probably don’t think of them as experts, but they do notice what these
people are doing online.

Known referent influencers

These are the everyday people who reside specifically within the social networks
of your customers and are known to your customer. The best way to think about
this group is to consider your high school class. Of the approximately 300 kids
who may have been in the class, there were probably 10 or 15 who everyone else
looked up to and followed. These are the cool kids whom everyone wanted to be
like. These are the referent influencers.

Reaching the Referent Influencers

Marketing to the referent influencers is all about knowing who they are, the
weight they carry, whether they reside within your customer’s social graph, and
how to reach and activate them to influence your customer. In the next sections,
we discuss how companies help you reach the referent influencers.

Not all tactics for reaching referent influencers need to be paid for. Your company’s
Facebook page can be a place to build a community and encourage referent
influencers to influence your customers by incentivizing them with competitions,
coupons, and special offers. Your customers who like your Facebook page will

CHAPTER 18 Accounting for the Influencers 273