Crowdtap_PeerInfluence

7/31/2019 Crowdtap_PeerInfluence

1/11The Infuencer Marketing Plat orm | Crowdtap.com | Follow us @Crowdtap
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ExEcutivESummary i f e e e s e e es p s e and is unlikely to go away. Theadvent o social media has created an environment where ar more peoples voices are now heard, de-mocratizing in ormation and increasing the potential power o every individual to in uence behaviors.Given the power and prevalence o social technology, the content each o us consumes will increasinglycome rom our personal networks as these technologies become deeply engrained throughout all media.

To date, much o the ocus in In uencer Marketing has centered on uber in uencers and scores like Klout and PeerIndex that aim to identi y those with the broadest reach in spreading content. In a recent Advertising Age article written by Crowdtap Founder and CEO Brandon Evans, Why In uencer MarketingIsnt About the In uencers, Evans detailed the argument or why peer in uencers and not these uber in uencers are really the key or marketers looking to drive changes in purchasing behavior. Due tothe strong reception rom that article, we created this white paper to help marketers navigate the rapidlygrowing In uencer Marketing space. In particular, we explain why peer in uencers are the most power ul

orce in social marketing today.

t s p pe e p e:

- The History and current state o In uencer Marketing

- Why Peer In uencers are the key to any In uencer Marketing strategy

- 5 critical tips or developing a success ul In uencer Marketing program
http://crowdtap.com/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://adage.com/article/digitalnext/influencer-marketing-influencers/233125/http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/influencer-marketing-influencers/233125/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://crowdtap.com/http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/influencer-marketing-influencers/233125/http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/influencer-marketing-influencers/233125/



a briE hiStory o markEting & in luEncEThe rst recorded advertisement dates back to 1704 , when the Boston News-Letter newspaper post-ed an announcement or a real estate property. Over 100 years later, the rst advertising agency was

ormed in Philadelphia in 1843, and it took another 100 years until the rst TV advertisement aired. For 300 years, care ully developed marketing messages programmed to mass audiences dominated the wayconsumers learned about products and services, with little innovation beyond the introduction o a newmedia channel every century or so.

At the turn o the 21st century, web search, but most importantly Google came into prominence. WithGoogle, consumers had the ability to actually seek out and research products and services or the rst time. This ability to search began a new paradigm in marketing where consumers began to take controlover their in ormation. While this era o search still enabled corporations to largely control their mes-saging and exposure to consumers, it began a shi t in power that would rapidly accelerate in the comingdecade.

In 2006, Facebook opened its doors beyond college to the public, changing communications orever. Inlate 2011, over 163MM active Facebook users were spending an average o over 15 minutes a day onthe site. Add in Twitter, Pinterest, blogs, and a variety o other services, and a signi cant portion o media consumption is shi ting to social media. As content creators look or new ways to deeply integrateinto mobile, TV and other media, this obsession with making everything social will only continue to grow.What this means is that we are now entering the age o discovery. Consumers will increasingly discover

content and products rom those they are connected to on social channels. Integrations like Spoti y (mu-sic), Net ix (movies) and Pinterest (products, recipes, etc.) into the Facebook timeline show how power ulsocial can be or discovering new things rom riends and peers.

The uture o marketing will more closely resemble the last ve years than the previous 300. As socialsharing continues to be integrated into everything we do, the value and importance o our social net-works will grow increasingly vital to marketers. Technology will also continue to enable marketers toleverage deeper and deeper relationships at scale, making the most in uential channel peer in uence, the most important channel to success ully market any product.
http://crowdtap.com/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-timeline/143661/http://mashable.com/2011/09/30/wasting-time-on-facebook/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://crowdtap.com/http://mashable.com/2011/09/30/wasting-time-on-facebook/http://adage.com/article/special-report-the-advertising-century/ad-age-advertising-century-timeline/143661/



EvEryday in luEncErSvS. ubEr in luEncErSDespite the popularity o the subject, de nitions o In uence, and as a result that o the discipline o In uencer Marketing, greatly vary. The initial discussion o In uencer Marketing really began be oresocial media in 2000 when Malcolm Gladwell released his best selling book, The Tipping Point . In his bookGladwell argued The Law o the Few in which he stated The success o any kind o social epidemic isheavily dependent on the involvement o people with a particular and rare set o social gi ts. He used this lawto explain how cultural trends like the renewed popularity in Hush Puppies were driven by uber in uencers.

More recently, Duncan Watts, a ormer Columbia pro essor and a principal research scientist at Microso t Research, put orth a very compelling argument disproving Gladwells ndings in The Tipping Point . InWatts extensive research experiment polling 61,000 people worldwide, he ound that only about 5% o messages were passed through hubs or highly connected people. Several other experiments supportedhis view that it is not The Law o the Few that in uences behavior but the pass-around power o everyday people.

Gladwells argument was also made prior to social media. With social media, those that were perhaps lesssocial or interacted with riends and peers less requently in the real world, may now have many moreconnections that they communicate with more requently. It could also be argued that social media hasgiven Gladwells uber in uencers more o a plat orm to in uence. Companies like Klout and PeerIndexhave been built to try to identi y and score these uber in uencers, aiming to quanti y those who are ableto broadcast content to large audiences.

These scores can perhaps help identi y a person that may generate more impressions or a marketer, but even that has been recently re uted by hard data. A recent Advertising Age article titled, How Content Is Really Shared: Close Friends, Not In uencersexplores how content ows through viral sites such asBuzzFeed and StumbleUpon. Surprising to many they ound that, The best way to go viral is engage mil-lions who share in small networks. In act, in studying how 50 stories grew virally via Facebook, BuzzFeedPresident Jon Steinberg ound the median ratio o actual views to shares was merely 9-to-1. Twitter waseven lower at 5-to-1. So despite all this talk o uber in uencers as the key to spreading content, most content was visited by less than 10 people per share.

To those in the Duncan Watts camp, this makes complete sense. Just as with o ine word-o -mouth, werely most on our close, tight-knit networks o amily, riends and peers. Each o us has a small group o those who we trust or advice on speci c topics like ashion, parenting, music, healthy ood etc. The truepower o in uencing consumer behavior is to tap into thousands i not millions o these peer networksin a way that enables those the brand can reach to in uence their close peers. It is these everyday in u-encers that are o ten overlooked in the discussions on In uencer Marketing and thus the ocus o thiswhite paper.
http://crowdtap.com/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.htmlhttp://adage.com/article/digitalnext/content-shared-close-friends-influencers/233147/http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/content-shared-close-friends-influencers/233147/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://crowdtap.com/http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/content-shared-close-friends-influencers/233147/http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/content-shared-close-friends-influencers/233147/http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/122/is-the-tipping-point-toast.html



thE caSE orPEEr in luEncEPeer recommendation ranks rst in nearly every study conducted to measure consumer trust in prod-uct discovery and purchasing decisions, including this one rom Nielsen. Marketers have long known that word-o -mouth is the most power ul way to convey a message but until recently, doing so at scale wasnot possible. Social networks were the rst step as they ampli y the number o close contacts we cankeep in touch with as well as the requency by which we can communicate with them. Someone thrilledwith a recent purchase no longer has to wait to tell their riend about it in a couple hours or days, at which time theyve likely orgotten anyway. Instead, they can share the news with all o their riendsimmediately, and instantly receive responses rom others who are interested, or may have purchased theitem as well.

The acceleration o this cycle o peer recommendation creates an opportunity or marketers to begin totruly impact purchase behavior through developing a close network o brand advocates who unction aspeer in uencers, providing a direct communication channel or brands to their most passionate consum-ers. Our company, Crowdtap, was built to enable marketers to do this at scale, while having the ability tomeasure all brand activities on and o ine rom one central plat orm. As technology enables peer in u-ence at scale, marketers can ocus on working closely with consumers that can make the biggest impact on their business e ciently.

Most people have the potential to act as peer in uencers, and the majority o consumers today alreadyare in some orm. While those with underdeveloped social networks with very ew riends or ollowers

(Social Laggards) are not good targets, those with highly overdeveloped social networks (Social Broad-casters) may not be either. As the true power o in uencing purchasing decisions comes rom a personsclose amily, riends and peers, a ocus on peer in uence presents the most viable opportunity or mar-keters. It can be tempting to go a ter Social Broadcasters due to their great number o ollowers or highKlout scores but as real in uence is truly tied to close networks, these broadcasters are limited in number and attention. Further ltering or those who actually love and want to advocate or your brand makes thepotential targets or any brand even slimmer. Even i a brand can e ciently identi y these Broadcasters at scale, they unction much like a top down media channel, largely as a way to get eyeballs, and there arelikely cheaper CPM options out there.
http://crowdtap.com/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://crowdtap.com/http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/global-advertising-consumers-trust-real-friends-and-virtual-strangers-the-most/



d s i f e e s t pe

0 50 100 200 500 1000 5000

Pee i f e e sAverage network size o close,

personal connections

S b s e sMany loose, impersonal

social connections

S l sSmall, underdeveloped

social graph

ne S ze

P o p u

l a t

i o n

The real key or marketers is to ocus on where most people are, and in particular where you can iden-ti y large groups o your potential brand advocates. Efective In uencer Marketing needs to embrace thedynamics o true, personal, trusted relationships to drive bottom o the unnel success (e.g. afecting what products people actually buy). Treating in uencers simply as a way to generate the maximum number o

impressions possible is really overlooking the whole value social dynamics can have or marketers and theentire concept o social media marketing.
http://crowdtap.com/http://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://twitter.com/crowdtaphttp://crowdtap.com/



S e Pee i f e e ( e 500 e )

thE PowEr o

PEEr in luEncEThe debate against Peer In uence is not due to a lack o belie in its power to in uence consumers, but instead the inability to meaning ully scale and measure it. With scale now possible and increasing rapidly,marketers must act quickly to begin to test, learn, and optimize their peer in uence channel. To illustratewhat is currently possible, the below metrics show how one o our Fortune 500 clients has been able toscale their peer in uence channel in under a year.

65,000In uencers 761,000Engagements 11 mSocial Reach 55 mSocialImpressions


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kEyS to SuccESSin in luEncEr markEtingGiven the scale and impact that is now possible in In uencer Marketing, marketers will increasingly con-tinue to create and expand their initiatives in the space. In order to do so success ully, there are severalkey points to consider:

i e e s e f e eDepending on what you sell, the types o in uencers may be diferent. Peer in uencers whichinclude amily, riends, coworkers, local group/organization members and more closely knit online groups are o ten the key in uencers o most requently purchased items. These include

ood and household items, dining, entertainment and clothing. Other more in requent highticket purchases like cars, electronics and vacations o ten actor a mix o peer in uence as wellas subject matter experts/reviews as consumers look to do additional research beyond rec-ommendations o their personal networks. It is important that marketers consider how their product decisions are being made and create an in uencer marketing strategy that helps thembest leverage those points o in uence.

S e , e f e eThe most e cient way to start building an in uencer campaign is with people that have alreadyidenti ed themselves as having some a nity with your brand. While liking a page, ollowing abrand or providing an email address certainly isnt a sign that someone will be a passionatebrand advocate, it is a great place to look or those who will. Leverage the existing social pres-ence that you have built and enable people within those communities to raise their hand to beinvolved in the brand at a deeper level. For in uence to be authentic, it should start with your own loyal and satis ed customers or those you can likely convert, not just someone with ahigh score or a lot o ollowers.

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d e se e e e sThe best way to identi y great peer in uencers is to let them opt in and prove, through their actual participation, that they want to stay deeply involved with the brand. There is a tendencyto want to create exclusive criteria be ore a program even begins as to who should be allowedto participate. In addition to limiting the potential scale, the criteria used to pre-identi y in u-encers is o ten awed. Just because someone has success sharing content or a large ollow-ing doesnt mean they will be passionate about and engaged with your brand. Likewise, prior shopping requency, and level o social media usage can o ten be misleading. Ultimately thegoal is to identi y those who truly want to be involved with your brand and are willing and ableto communicate in ormation about it to their personal networks. That may mean sampling ve

riends in an intimate environment or writing a blog post that hundreds read and a hand ul act on. Enabling all these options to develop will position a brand best or success.

le f e e s f e e Sure, in uencers can be great or introducing their riends to your products, but success ullydoing this means giving them a true voice in your brand. No one wants to blindly pitch prod-ucts rom a brand they are not truly connected to. The best way to build advocacy is to ask or opinions. Involve your in uential consumers in product development & testing, marketing andideation and give them exclusive access to the brand. Being involved in the decision-makingprocess and being privy to exclusive in ormation gives your in uencers social capital, which

they can and will use to promote your brand.

a s , pPerhaps the most common mistake made in in uencer marketing is to look at it as a short-term campaign. Sure, there are short-term goals and messages that are important to get out,but this content and activity should be built out within a broader ongoing in uencer marketinginitiative. Advocacy builds over time; in uencers dont want to get involved only to be orgot-ten once an initial goal is reached. Think long-term, build an in uencer marketing channel that is an ongoing asset to your brand. Leverage it or research, ideas, testing, promotion, and en-able those consumers who have proven to be deeply interested and involved in your brand tostay that way.

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11/11Th I f M k ti Pl t | C dt | F ll @C dt

In uencer marketing is no longer just a hot topic; it is a necessary and readily available channel or anymarketer. As technology continues to enable us to stay more closely connected with our close social net-works and increasingly leverage them or in ormation, it will grow even more vital that brands are able toclosely collaborate with their consumers. Our mission at Crowdtap is to:

S e e p ess e ee s

Brand and consumer collaboration is already happening and is building a strong oothold in the marketingindustry. The brands that will succeed in the uture are those that understand that the role o marketing iscompletely shi ting rom broadcasting controlled messages to achieve impressions, to turning interestedconsumers into passionate advocates. To achieve those goals, marketers will need to understand and scaletheir in uential consumers and empower them to convince others to interact with the brand.

aboutcrowdtaPCrowdtap allows brands to collaborate with their most passionate consumers, activating them as peer in uencers or scalable word-o -mouth marketing both on and o ine.

With Crowdtaps so tware as a service (SaaS) plat orm, marketers can easily integrate their brands exist-ing communities rom Facebook, Twitter, and CRM databases, to seamlessly identi y, activate, and rewardtheir top in uencers. For these in uencers, Crowdtap is a un, social game that lets them gain VIP status,access exclusive content and products and earn perks and rewards or collaborating with their avoritebrands.

Crowdtap was named Mashables Up-and-Coming Social Media Service o the Year in 2011. Its clientsinclude leading brands such as American Express, Microso t, Old Navy and Verizon. Headquartered inNew York, Crowdtap is unded by The Foundry Group and Tribeca Venture Partners.

Visit Crowdtap.com or more in ormation.

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Crowdtap_PeerInfluence