This post is provided by our partner the Future Foundation, the leading consumer futures business.

The power of social networking – and the important position it has come to play in so many of our lives – has given rise to an entirely new discipline within marketing: that of the influencer.

To quantify consumers’ online influence, we created an index using our nVision Global research and then used it to gain an insight into who these people really are. First, we looked at how closely a selection of variables correlated with two statements: “People often come to me for advice in general” and “I’m always telling friends/family about new products and services I’ve discovered”. The variables in question included key factors like the propensity to share links on social networking websites, the size of personal friendship networks, willingness to talk about brands, self-perception of influence and strength of attitudes towards word-of-mouth.  By conducting several stages of factor analysis, people were then categorised as low/medium/high in terms of their influence. [Creative Commons image by Felipe Bachomo]

Of course, while levels of influence will vary from sector to sector, we can profile influencers at a consumer level by using a multiple regression model. And this process shows that, broadly speaking, the most influential consumers in terms of passing on messages are female, aged between 25 and 34, single, in full-time work earning at least £35k, a social networker and a “maximiser” (those who scrutinise every aspect of their consumption decisions to ensure they get the best possible deals at the best possible prices). Maximising behaviour incorporates a range of actions – from in-store or online haggling to consulting friends and family about purchasing decisions, or from trawling the Moneysavingexpert forums for advice to the type of extreme couponing behaviour that has recently grown in popularity in the USA. Indeed, there is even a TV programme on Discovery Real Time that looks at the craze in detail.

Overall, 13.6% of UK adults qualify as “influential”, with the most significant drivers being age and the extent to which a consumer “maximises”.  Compared to the UK average, for example, those in the 25-34 age group are twice as likely to be classified as influencers. A similar ratio is seen for those who maximise. Fortunately for brands, promotional activity in particular is a good vehicle through which to generate conversation – the majority of consumers in almost all of the markets we surveyed in our global research said that they enjoyed talking to their families and friends about “products they got at really good prices or discounts”.  We know this to be a major part of what we call the New Normal – those consumption behaviours that will define a new era of consumption in the digital, post-recession world.

However, this approach to marketing depends on the major assumption – that the network of consumers attached to a brand or category is arranged like the diagram to the left.

In network theory, this is called a scale-free network – but we can think of it as a perfectly shaped “influencer network”. Inside the model, consumers may be distributed widely but they all are nevertheless connected via a small number of highly connected “influencer” nodes. And thus, if one of these influencers passes on a message, it will spread throughout entire network; if you can influence the influencers, the theory goes, then messages can spread throughout the web at rapid pace.

Is this assumption accurate though?  Certainly, networks around professional services are indeed distributed in this fashion; IT products in particular tend to have customer bases focused around influential blogs and forums and a system like Twitter has users who carry more clout than others. In general, however, consumers rarely arrange themselves in such a manner. Instead, they usually cluster around their friends, as the model below demonstrates.

The alternative mode to the right is known as a “small world” network and, as you can see from this personal version of it, my friends are arranged in small clusters: workmates old and new around the bottom, friends of friends at the top left and a group of school and university friends at the top right. However, there is no one person in my network who is connected to everyone else, no one person who can transmit a message across the entire network.

Here, messages will bounce around between groups of friends before jumping across into another group. This is vital for marketers: in order for messages to spread, it is just as important for the them to be able to move freely and easily between groups of friends as it is to engage influencers.  Only then can your message spread to all corners of your connected consumer universe.

This assumes even greater importance when one recognises that, despite their more targeted nature, traditional advertising methods don’t work any more effectively on social networking sites.  Indeed, only 10% of social network users in the UK find the adverts they see on Facebook etc. more interesting than those they encounter elsewhere.

Conversely, social media is an increasingly important part of our conversations: 36% of UK consumers admit to sharing links to interesting content on their profiles while 43% say they usually click on the links their friends share. This, therefore, is how messages can spread and bounce around groups of friends – and illustrates the potential value of newsfeeds as marketing platforms. If consumers are incentivised to post brand messages onto their newsfeeds, then they will be shared among groups of friends and spread rapidly through the entire network.  The video below offers a classic example of how successful such an approach can be:

Matt Taylor is Head of Innovation at the Future Foundation, the leading international consumer futures business. Since our launch in 1996, we have worked to meet the strategic needs of businesses through the application of insight. We identify, measure and examine trends, attitudes and behaviours through the rigorous analysis of quantitative and qualitative research. Our robust programme of research provides businesses with the grounding and confidence to anticipate the likely impact of the evolving consumer environment and identify new market and revenue opportunities. Let us assist your thinking, guide your decisions and drive your profits.

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For further information visit www.futurefoundation.net