"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet." --Shakespeare

That which we call viral marketing
by any other word would be just as fruitful.

Solutions

Chasing the Influencers

By Keith Bates

Once we agree on what to call viral marketing we then face the question of locating the recipients of our communications efforts. So let's start by getting the name of the process straight. Then we'll examine the ways in which we identify the influencers.

It's time someone eliminated, or at least minimized, the confusion around the terminology encountered when discussing viral marketing and its many permutations. So I'm going to give it a try.

The term viral marketing a.k.a. buzz marketing, relationship marketing, word-of-mouth on steroids, evangelism, or Influencer Relationship Marketing, was given birth by the VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 1995 to describe the phenomenon of Hotmail, which grew with the rapidity of a cold virus, from 0 to 12 million subscribers in eighteen months. Viral marketing was pronounced marketing buzzword of the year for 1998. It comes in two configurations, described for the moment in simple layman's terms as Level I--Self Perpetuating; and Level II--Needs Coaxing.

I won't get into how to employ it, or where, or when, because that is widely known with several great books on the topic. Remaining somewhat unanswered however is exactly how to put the 90-10 rule into play. This rule, taken from a small brochure given me twenty years ago by Regis McKenna, states that 90 percent of the world is influenced by the other 10 percent. Chasing the Influencers is the search for that 10%.

Obviously viral marketing, to be put in motion, requires a newsworthy, perhaps even virus- worthy, product or service. The required degree of newsworthiness, which determines whether we are looking at a Level I or a Level II situation, will be the topic of another paper. But today we are trying to identify who precisely; the individuals are that spread the word. And satisfied, or even ecstatic, users are an inadequate answer. They need to be people with a unique set of characteristics.

Well, how do we define these people that put word of mouth to work, who can be depended on to put our message into motion? This is where the terminology gets tricky. Because every author who writes on the topic wants to develop his/her own unique terms. Why no consistency? Because being unique helps one stand out from the crowd, and that sells books. But being unique, non-standard is a better word, complicates the hell out of industry acceptance, and slows the growth of what is really a great concept. It's like standards in high technology... wide spread use demands commonly used and understood terms. Without standards the Internet would never have reached the awesome proportions that it has so quickly.

The best starting point would be the various authors who have assigned descriptive titles to the individuals, or influencers, who will spread the word, and who in effect, will act as evangelists and spread the message about your company, products, or services.
From Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, we get the term Mavens, who function as data banks by providing the message. And Connectors, who function as social glue by spreading the message. Then Salesmen or Persuaders, who help when we are unconvinced of what we hear. These three types of people populate both network hubs and mega hubs (hives is the word Godin prefers).

Then, from Seth Godin, of Unleashing the ldeavirus fame, comes the label Sneezers, which Seth claims are the heart of an ideavirus. In fact Sneezers are so important that they must be subdivided into Promiscuous sneezers and Powerful sneezers. Promiscuous sneezers are members of a hive (hub) who can be depended on to pass along ideas that appeal to them. Promiscuous sneezers can be persuaded to perform. They can be bought. And they are seldom highly regarded by opinion leaders but when promiscuous enough are very effective. Powerful sneezers on the other hand are above reproach. They can't be bought, or their power diminishes.

Emanuel Rosen, in his great book, The Anatomy of Buzz, refers to people who spread the word as Network Hubs, subdivided as either Regular or Mega, and points out that these people are also referred to as opinion leaders, influencers, lead users, or power users. Regular Hubs are non-media people, just regular folks-who are the most difficult to find. Mega Hubs are media people-press, celebrities, analysts, politicians and others. Both contain people in either the "expert" category (Gladwell's Mavens), or "social" category (Gladwell's Connectors and Salesmen).

In George Silverman's book The Secrets of Word-of-Mouth Marketing we see a slightly different approach. George has picked up on Geoffrey Moore's (of Crossing the Chasm fame) TALC or Technology Adoption Life Cycle. George drops the word Technology as he appeals to a broader audience. But the components are the same and are identified as Innovators, Early Adopters, Middle Majority, Late Majority, and Laggards.

George has developed a Decision Matrix to position the right message in front of the right people at the right time (syncrographics). Delivering the message falls to three categories of people: expert to expert, expert to peer, peer to peer. Silverman's experts are Gladwell's Mavens. His definition of peers gets a little fuzzy and at this point he introduces Champions, which sound like Gladwell's Connectors. He then goes on to reference the science of memes. But that is another whole series of books and will be saved for another day and another article.

Published in June of 2003 (all four of the preceding books were published in 2001) by Marian Salzman, Ira Matahia, and Ann O'Reilly, all of Euro RSCG Worldwide, is the book Buzz. Marian is Chief Strategy Officer at Euro. They refer to influencers as either Alphas or Bees.

Alphas (Gladwell's Mavens) are powerful influencers, not because of the money they spend but because of the weight of their influence. They are typically independent, confident, opinionated, and curious. Alphas are driven by a hunger for stimulation, a disregard for convention, and an urge to take risks. But they are not particularly super-social. Spreading the word at crowds and group gatherings is left to the Bees (Gladwell's Connectors).

Bees are connected and communicative, and translate the Alpha's ideas into usable, digestible data for the mainstream. They are the conduits through which information reaches the masses. Bees create "tipping points". Bees are driven by a love of communicating and sharing with others, a sense of style based on imitation and a need for confirmation.

Buzz also picks up on Moore's TALC in their development of a buzz continuum. Only in the Buzz definition innovators and early adopters become the lunatic fringe, or Alphas; the early majority becomes the bees; the late majority becomes mainstream; and skeptics remain laggards.

Not to be overlooked simply because they paint with a broader stroke are evangelists, defined and developed in Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba's book Creating Customer Evangelists. Unlike Godin's Promiscuous Sneezers however they cannot be bought. Evangelists are defined by Ben and Jackie as key influencers whose beliefs are based on emotional connections and deep-seated convictions. They are customers who are truly thrilled with your product or service. Ben and Jackie know how to take your company's best customers and build them into influential, loyal, and enthusiastic evangelists, lumping mavens, connectors and persuaders under a common umbrella of power influencers.

Now that we have roughly defined the kinds of people we want to spread the word how do we sort them out from the crowd so as to put our viral marketing strategy into play? How do we locate the Mavens and Connectors that are critical to our little piece of the world? And how do we determine whether our viral approach should be a Level I or a Level II? Who's going to help us get the job done? Lets explore the options.

Communications companies or consultants are often the starting point. Keith Bates has his ViralSell Engine, Paul Rand of Ketchum has his IRM (Influencer Relationship Management), Marian Salzman of Euro RSCG has her S.T.A.R. supported by the InsightExpress' Stargazer study on Buzz, WPP Group's Burson-Marsteller has their Knowledge Management Practice and e-fluentials, and Edelman their Relationship Index.

They've all reengineered an old process known as advertising and public relations into this new/old thing called viral marketing/word of mouth marketing. The Internet separates the new from the old.

At this point you can chase the influencers (mavens and connectors) by shooting from the hip, using sales force input and secondary research against in-house developed criteria; or you can employ online, primary research through companies like RoperASW or InsightExpress.

If you're going to do it yourself be aware that the criterion for the selection process is where it's gets tricky. There probably are no clearly defined parameters for either the segment auditil1g or the environmental blueprint for your particular influencers. Picked up from the Ketchum IRM website are some examples for one of their clients, a consumer- electronics company. For them IRM identified the buyer/key target, ultimate influencers, determined detractors, and initial influencers-broken down into a subset of ten specific influencer targets.

The beauty of the influencer database is that is tends to be small and easily (economically) managed. Remember, 10% of the world influences 90%.

B2B/technology may not demand the heavy sophistication of consumer research simply because the numbers are smaller, but don't be fooled into thinking that careful analysis is not just important, because individual sales are typically dramatically greater.

Keith Bates was CEO/Creative Director of his own high tech ad/pr agency for over 30 years before forming his consulting group in 2000. He has a weblog devoted to viral marketing which can be found at www.keithbates.blogspot.com. He can be reached for comment at keithbates@kbates.com.