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What do most marketers want in 2014?
They want to be trendsetters. They want their brands and businesses to be the most popular, the most widely ‘shared’ and most importantly, they want that elusive ‘cool factor’.
There’s been a long held belief in marketing that to set a trend you follow this formula:
1. Make your product scarce
2. Seed your product into the right markets (yes hipsters, this often means you!)
3. Let word of mouth spread this product through the innovator market
4. Wait…
5. Hit the ‘early adopters’ with a massive increase in distribution and advertising / marketing
6. PROFIT!
This process has proven time and time again to work for many brands. They ride the wave of the innovators and early adopters through to significant market share with the early & late majorities.
What we are now seeing is scientific studies, not only confirming this theory, but also breaking down its mechanics to provide a greater understanding of why this process is so effective in our societies.
In 2013 researchers at the University of St Andrews, led by Andrew Whiten, began studying squirrel monkeys’ social networks and the influence individual monkeys had on overall ‘trends’ within the group.
They introduced two new foraging behaviors into the group, one through an alpha male primate, and one through a primate on the fringe of the social group. The alpha male was known to have a much larger social network than the fringe dweller.
The behavior introduced by the alpha male was widely, and quickly, adopted by the group. Additionally, the study found that monkeys with the strongest social networks catch on fastest to the latest in foraging crazes. “They are monkey trendsetters.”
What does all this monkey business have to do with social media marketing?
As with the monkeys, our human behaviors are widely influenced by our social networks, and more specifically, by those key influencers within our network who sit at the top of the social food chain. Social media marketing has made it possible to reach these individuals with more accuracy than ever before.
The question that this posses of course is, is it better to have 100 fans, each with an influencer network of 50 people, or 1 fan with an influencer network of 5,000 people? The monkeys tell us that the latter is the more effective for marketing your brand.
So, how do we reach those key individuals? Ironically, the qualities that make these individuals the influencers they are, also makes them very hard to reach, let alone influence to buy into your brand. These people are aloof, discerning and highly critical, which is why they are who they are.
If you want to get cut through with these people, start by tailoring very specific messages which will appeal to their sensibilities, and seed these messages through bespoke channels (e.g. blogs & niche commentators etc.), or through social networks which have not yet been overtaken by the early majority (i.e. Think Instagram & Snapchat, not Facebook).
Written by Gina Lednyak
Gina Lednyak is the Founder & Managing Director of L&A Social Media, a one-of-a-kind agency specialising in Social Media Strategy & Implementation in Sydney and NYC. She has been in the social media space since Facebook was launched and was even part of the original group of Facebook in Boston. L&A Social Media uses a psychology based approach to social media that allows a deeper understanding into the minds and lives of brand consumers and uses this information to create powerful online brand presences.
Gina created and launched some of the first social media campaigns in Australia and over her time in social has worked with iconic brands such as Samsung, Stoli Vodka, nudie Juice and many more, as well as helped hundreds of small businesses in Australia launch their social media campaigns.
For more information visit http://lednyaksocial.com/