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Kelsey Libert
February 23, 2016
A recent study by Schlesinger Associates for Augure found that 75% of marketers
consider finding the right influencers the most challenging aspect of an
influencer marketing strategy. Perhaps that s due to a misguided approach in
which the size of someone s following is treated as the primary benchmark of
their influence.
New research shows that you only need handful of influencers to give the
impression that everyone is talking about your brand.
Researchers at the University of Southern California recently uncovered the
majority illusion, a paradox within social networks that makes some ideas,
behaviors, or attributes appear widespread even when they are not. Since we can
t keep an eye on what the entire world is up to, we re limited to witnessing
what our social network says and does. At times, well-connected members within
our network can skew our perception of how common an idea or behavior actually
is.
When it looks like an idea or action is much more popular than it is, it
greatly increases the likelihood that others will adopt it too. In other words,
the majority illusion may be a driving force behind why something eventually
becomes truly popular. For example, one of the study s researchers, Kristina
Lerman, believes the majority illusion was a factor in the Arab Spring gaining
momentum and the shift in public opinion toward same-sex marriage.
And yet under insidious applications, the majority illusion can even cause
people to adopt false beliefs or extreme viewpoints without realizing they are
rare, which helps explain how fringe political and ideological groups may
develop.
Beyond explaining why uncommon beliefs can appear far more popular than they
actually are, the majority illusion also explains something we already know
influence depends heavily on having the right connections. But in addition to
being well-connected, an individual s location within a network plays a role in
their potential to create the majority illusion.
W160211_LIBERT_HOWNETWORK
In the diagram above, the red nodes are active, meaning they all share an
attribute, such as being a redhead or following a vegan diet. The network
structures in both figures are identical, yet the placement of active members
differs. Figure A illustrates how a few well-connected people can cause the
majority illusion; a large fraction of the network will observe the active
attribute in their neighbors, which can give the impression that a lot more
people are redheads or vegans than is globally true. While in figure B, the
group members won t perceive an abundance of redheads and vegans since they
aren t observing as many people in their network with those attributes.
Visualizing the hierarchical relationships within a social network further
demonstrates how the structure of the network, and the specific location and
connections of certain influencers, makes some people more influential than
others, even when they have fewer followers.
If that sounds a bit complicated, stay with me.
My team at Fractl created the below influencer marketing network graph using 77
mid-level Twitter influencers (between 30,000 and 500,000 followers) across
eight different verticals to illustrate strategic positioning among influential
accounts.
In the graph, each node represents an influencer and the lines between nodes
represent a relationship. The bigger the node, the more connections that
influencer has within this particular network it does not mean they have the
largest following overall. Each color represents which vertical an influencer
belongs to. As you can see, the larger nodes often have connections across
multiple verticals. Again, these are not necessarily the most popular
influencers with the largest following.
As our graph shows, being well-connected or strategically positioned within a
social network may impact one s ability to influence others more than the size
of one s following. That s not to say that size never matters individuals
with bigger networks do tend to more influential. But the structure of those
connections matters, too. So marketers should focus on two other factors that
measure influence in a social network: betweenness centrality and closeness.
Betweenness centrality is a person s location between different sections of a
network. A high betweenness centrality signals a strategic position. For
example, consider an executive with connections throughout several industries,
as opposed to a leader who is only well-connected within his own industry.
Closeness is the average number of degrees between an individual and other
members of the network; someone with one degree of separation, or more
closeness, will probably wield greater influence (consider the ease of getting
a favor from a friend as opposed to a friend of a friend s mother s cousin).
Influencers who have a high betweenness centrality are ideal for reaching a
wide audience, while influencers within a tightly-knit niche group are best
suited for action-driven goals.
Want to quickly get the word out about a new product? Get a handful of
influencers with high betweenness centrality talking about it. Potential reach
is greatest among these strategically-positioned influencers since their
connections across various networks help them efficiently disseminate
information. Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) and Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) are
two great examples from our network graph with high betweenness centrality
(8.71 and 7.72, respectively). Notice how their connections span across the
entire graph.
W160211_LIBERT_WHATBETWEENNESS
Want to get people to take action, such as signing up for a free trial or
sharing a video? The researchers found the majority illusion is most likely to
occur when group members with a low number of connections have a tendency to
connect with individuals with a lot of connections. In networks where members
have a low degree of connections, exposure to outside ideas and opinions is
limited, making them more easily influenced. The high-degree members of these
close-knit networks, who we ll call niche leaders, have great influence within
their network, making them an ideal partner for accomplishing conversion-driven
goals.
In the graph, you ll notice isolated groups on the edges of the graph. The
example below shows one such group, a cluster of individuals in the public
health community that with few connections to the other verticals in the
network. Most of this cluster is connected to one or two larger nodes which are
probably niche leaders.
W160211_LIBERT_WHATNETWORK
As Malcolm Gladwell said in The Tipping Point, There are exceptional people
out there capable of starting epidemics. All you have to do is find them.
Fortunately, you don t need to build a network graph model to locate
influencers with the highest potential to create the majority illusion.
To find influencers with high betweenness centrality, look for people followed
by other influencers who also have followers across many verticals. It helps if
their niche naturally overlaps with other niches (such as a travel journalist
followed by business professionals in a range of industries). To find niche
leaders, look for people with narrowly-focused interests whose followers are
similar to them but have a low number of followers.
Lastly, timing is a key factor for creating the majority illusion. Coordinate a
handful of influencers to push your message, product, or content around the
same time to give the impression that everyone is talking about your brand.
Kelsey Libert is a viral marketing speaker and Director of Promotions at
Fractl, you can connect with her at @KelseyLibert.