what makes an influencer by vocus and brian solis

7/31/2019 What Makes an Influencer by Vocus and Brian Solis

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Infuencer Grudge Match:Lady Gaga versus Bono!

What Makes an Infuencer: a Survey by Vocus and Brian Solis

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SummaryVocus teamed up with Brian Solis (@briansolis) to answer a burning question what makes an online infuencer. From the start, we realizedthat it was a very subjective question so we decided to put it to the marketing and communications proessionals who work with infuencerevery day. From August 25, 2010 to September 10, 2010, we surveyed 739 people on their perceptions o online infuence and th

results have cast a ascinating light on this trickiest o social media debates.

Key ndings include the ollowing: Infuence is dierent rom popularity but An overwhelming 90% o respondents perceive a big dierence between infuence

and popularity. However, qualitative review o open ended comments on this question shows the distinction is not always clear. Aollow-on question also adds ambiguity, with 84% o respondents saying that there is a correlation between reach and infuenceon social networks.

Quality o network and quality o content have a dening impact on infuence. The top contributing actors that makea person or brand infuential include the quality or ocus o the network (60%), the quality o content (55%), which tied with thecapacity to create measurable outcomes (55%), and the depth o relationship a person or brand has with social contacts (40%).

Content is king, but context is queen. 50% o respondents said that the single most important action a person or brand can take

to increase their infuence online was to create, post or share compelling content.

Views vary on eective measurement. A majority, 29% o respondents, said action is the most important measure oeectiveness in social media, yet more than one-third (36%) also ranked action as the least important.

Senior execs are willing to pay or infuence. 57% o respondents said they would be willing to pay an infuencer to help driveactions and outcomes. Cross-tab analysis by title, role and organization provided additional insight as to who exactly is willing to payor infuence. A cross-tab analysis by title showed that the executive level, such as CEOs and CMOs (63%), would be most willing topay or infuence.

IntroductionSomeone like me is how Richard Edelman, the CEO o the public relations rm that bears his name, characterizes the term new infuencer

a concept predicated by social media.1

For those tasked with building, strengthening or deending a personal or organizational brandreputation online, the words someone and new are operative: it also means that there are more infuencers, and that someone coulbe, well, anyone.

This act has caused marketing and public relations proessionals to re-evaluate the term infuence. We say reevaluate, as opposed toredene, because, while the denition o infuence hasnt changed, (as Brian wrote the ability to cause measurable actions and outcomes.2

the identity o the infuencers has. Perhaps that, in and o itsel, is enough to merit a change in denition.


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DemographicsWhile this survey was oered globally via e-mail invitation and socialmedia channels, the majority o respondents (79%) hailed rom NorthAmerica. The next largest region represented was Europe, with 14%,

while the remainder, a handul o respondents, said they were basedin Asia, Australia, South America, the Middle East and Arica.

In terms o unctions or roles, marketers made up the single largestgroup with 35%, while PR proessionals ollowed with 28%. Socialmedia proessionals, or example community managers, accountedor 17%, and advertising and SEO types comprised the next twocategories with 2% each.

Respondents appeared to be seasoned proessionals with 88%reporting that they were at a mid-career level or higher. The singlelargest group was rom the executive level, such as owners, CEOs andCMOs, with 30% o respondents.

In terms o organizations, 33% reported working or a corporation,32% reported working or an agency, 14% said they were sel-employed, 12% reported working or a non-prot and 7% workingin academia and education. The remaining 2% work in government.

A majority, 42%, reported their organization as having revenues oless than $1 million; 19% reported revenues in the range o between$1 million and $5 million; 15% said between $6 million and $50million. Organizations with $51 million or more in revenues wererepresented by 28% o respondents, including 9% who stated theirorganizations have sales in excess o $1 billion.

Infuence is not popularityInfuence is not popularity 90% o respondents seemingly drew a clear distinction when asked the yes or no question, Is there a bigdierence between popularity and infuence? The 237 open-ended comments submitted along with this question indicated a perceptiothat infuence is serious and popularity is un.

Infuence drives, motivates, is steadast, and causes people to takeaction, while popularity is hip, perhaps amusing and wanes easilyamid a ckle audience. Liking you and listening to you are twodierent things, wrote one respondent. Popularity is an expressiono volume while infuence is an expression o value, said another.Some elt popularity was simply not linked to infuence. The way I

see it, Simon Cowell rom American Idol had infuence, even when hewasnt very popular, added a third respondent.

However, digging deeper, we nd that the line between infuenceand popularity does have touches o gray its not always a simpledichotomy between yes or no. For example, one respondent wrote,Infuence is the next level ater popularity, reerring to a causal linkbetween the two concepts, while another said, You can be popularwithout infuence and vice versa.

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Infuence grudge match: Lady Gaga versus BonoIn describing the dierence between infuence and popularity, one respondent wrote, Lady Gaga is popular, Bono is infuential.

Its reasonable to consider Bono infuential, because he and his bands music oten carries a political message, he advocates or charitable

causes, and more than once has stood on a world stage challenging leaders to help him raise money or humanitarian missions.

Bono was the artist chosen to perorm during the at the rst Superbowl Haltime Show ollowing the events o September 11th he revealedan American fag sewn on the inside o his jacket at the end o his perormance to the delight o many, and to the outrage o some. Therelittle doubt Bono is popular, has reach and also, wields infuence.

Lady Gaga is easy to label as being more popular than infuential. Along with chart-topping popular culture music and racy videos, sheportrayed in the media both mainstream and social as a diva, o the Hollywood-esque glitz and glam. But what i she put her popularityto work or a cause one thats generally considered good? For example, i she joined orces with the Susan G. Komen Foundation or theCure, would her popularity then be deemed infuential? Perhaps, i, as Brian says, she was able to cause a measurable outcome moneyor the oundation, or better yet, contribute tangibly to declining rates o breast cancer.

This question is also useul or the discussion o reach which 84%

o respondents said had a correlation to infuence. With more than6 million ollowers on a veried Twitter account, does Lady Gaga(@ladygaga) not have reach? And i theres a correlation betweenreach and infuence, can we deduce that she also has infuence?

While we were doing this research, coincidentally, Lady Gaga did inact place her popularity in support o a cause. She held a rally inMaine in an attempt to infuence a U.S. Senator to consider legislationrepealing the U.S. Militarys policy o Dont ask, dont tell. Shealso began using Twitter to advocate or the cause even Tweeting amessage at Sen. John McCain. Her actions drew substantial coveragein both mainstream and new media a measurable outcome is yet tobe determined.

Contributing actorsWhat actors contribute to making a person or brand infuential? Sixty percent o respondents said the quality or ocus o the network wasmost important, while 55% said the quality o content, which was tied with capacity to cause measurable outcomes. The next singlehighest category was depth o relationship with 40%.

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This data was obtained by asking respondents to rate a list o named contributing actors on a scale o 1 through 5, where 5 was the bestIn analyzing the data, when we combined the rankings or 4 and 5 together, we ound a consistent result or the top three:

90% rated quality or ocus o your network as a 4 or a 5 85% rated measurable outcomes as a 4 or a 5

85% rated quality o content as a 4 or 5

Friend or ollow: relationships matterHow do infuencers attract ollowers? The top two reasons, according to a majority o respondents, were 1) they post interesting conten(37%) and 2) they have a personal connection to their network (32%). It seems relationships do matter.

This too was a ranking question where respondents were orced to choose among answers. For example, respondents could onlrank one choice as #1 and only one choice could be ranked #2, and so on. I we add the top two choices together, our analysis showssimilar patterns.

62% o respondents say they ollow a person or organization or relevant content

51% say they ollow people or brands considered thought leaders 43% say they ollow because o a personal connection

The characteristics that did not rank as highly are just as interesting at those that did. Fun, ollowing you back, and ame, did not rank highlyhowever we wondered i these results were refective o a relatively sophisticated survey sample given the marketing-related backgrounds othe respondents. The thesis being: would this question produce the opposite result i we sampled a consumer-oriented audience?

More likely to ollow people or brands Not as likely to ollow people or brands

Relevant content They are un

Personal connection They ollow you back

Thought leaders They are amous

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Single most important way to build infuenceThis analysis o the previous question was validated in a ollow-upquestion where respondents were asked to choose the single mostimportant action a person or brand could take to increase their

infuence online. Fity percent o respondents said, create, shareor post compelling content. Authenticity, a dening principle osocial media ranked next with 31%, while ocus on contributing toewer conversations, but more in depth ranked third with 10%. Theremaining dierence was near-evenly spread among the remainingchoices including, Contribute to as many social media conversationsas possible, connect with amous or infuential people, and beamous ofine.

The question on the single most important way to build infuencesreceived 23 open-ended suggestions which ollowed similar themes:

Engage in dialogue, listen and respond

Be relevant to the audiences you are seeking Create original and compelling content as an expert Be unique and distinctive Fulll the promise theyve made to earn the right to be part o the conversation Build trust a person you trust says jump and you will more likely jump than i some random minor celeb says jump Be authentic, passionate about work & have good content to share

So how do you earn the status o infuencer? Our survey results indicate that you need to provide useul and relevant content to youaudience. Content is still king, but context is queen. And the queen, ater all, is the most powerul piece on the chessboard.

Social media measurement undecided

Denitive answers on social media measurement were as equally evasive as the dierences among popularity, reach and infuenceRespondents were asked to rank the ollowing on a scale o 1 through 5, where a ranking o 1 was the best:

Click-through rates via Bit.ly or Website analytics Views o a particular piece o content An action (purchase, registration, download, vote) Tweets, Retweets, likes and posts

Interestingly, action received the most rankings or both the most important metric (29%) and the least important metric (36%). There wasno other metric that stood out among the options. I we combined the survey respondents that rated any given category a 1 or a 2, actionagain ranked rst with 37%, ollowed by views with 36% and tweets and click-through each with 32% respectively.

By view o a mean average, action again ranked the highest, with the breakdown as ollows:

Action: 3.24 Views: 3.1 Click-through: 3.08 Tweets/Likes: 3.06

The rating scale or this question was slightly dierent rom earlier questions, where 5 had previously been denoted as the best rating; in thicase 1 was the best. Consequently, we debated internally whether or not the results had been skewed.

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To test the ndings, we submitted a similar question through onlinepolling to a Webinar audience on September 22, 2010 an acid-testo sorts. The online polling question had 113 respondents and waspresented just prior to presenting the survey data on this particularquestion so as to avoid bias. The results were in line with the ndings o

our initial survey as denoted below.

I theres one nugget o knowledge we can take rom this particularquestion, it would be that one-size does not t all. Social mediaexperiences will be unique or every organization and, its thereorereasonable to suggest, that what organizations nd important in termso measurement will generally be unique.

As Ogilvys Rohit Bhargava wrote o social media case studies being overrated, The search or the perect case study or permission toinnovate is like spending your lie trying to nd a guy named George to marry because your best riend is happily married to a guy nameGeorge. Your objective may be the same as your riend (to get married), but the path you take will always be dierent.3

Naturally, i you take a dierent path, youll have dierent mile markers along the way.

Will people pay or infuence?This is a ascinating question with an equally ascinating answer.57% o respondents stated that they would, in act, be willing to payor an infuencer to help them drive actions or outcomes.

In order to learn more who exactly was willing to pay or aninfuencers help we perormed analysis on three dierent levels,divided by role (or unction), by title and by organization.

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Pay by role. Among roles, search or SEO proessionals were most willing (83% o respondents), and were closely ollowed by advertisingproessionals (78%). The sample sizes or these roles were relatively small, but when we looked at larger samples, including marketing anpublic relations, the indications also present infuencers with a revenue opportunity. 61% o marketing proessionals said they would paand more than hal 52% - o public relations proessionals said they would pay or an infuencers help.

Pay by title. Recall rom our demographics that respondents rom the executive level, including CEOs and CMOs, accounted or thesingle largest group by title in this survey segment comprising 30% o all respondents. A ull 63% o this group said they would be willingto pay or an infuencers help. More surprisingly, each segment in this cross-tab analysis rom intern to CEO said they would pay oan infuencers help.

Pay by organization. Agencies, including PR, advertising and social media agencies, are more willing to pay or an infuencers help tdrive results than any other single category o organization (64%). Corporations ollowed with 61%, then the sel-employed with 57%, theneducation or academics with 50%. Non-prots and government were last with 39% and 23% respectively.

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How do you dene infuence in 140 characters?The nal question o the survey was open-ended and received 611 responses. The tag cloud chart and subsequent analysis showed tharespondents used the words ability or power 70% o the time when dening infuence. Action ollowed next, with 45% o respondentusing this word. People or person was third being used 38% o the time perhaps refective o the social nature o well, social media

The most interesting part about this question was the words most commonly used to describe infuence could well be rearranged to orma denition o the term.

A sample o individual responses is as ollows (a ew o these are a bit longer than 140 characters, but noteworthynonetheless):

1. The capacity to drive ollowers actions2. The ability to uplit people into action3. Ability to persuade4. Something that drives to a strong call to action5. Ability to lead and inspire others6. The ability to get others to act or think in a certain way7. Sharing, putting your ngerprint on the Web, leaving your mark

on the world8. Creating cause and eect, i.e. ollowers will incorporate an

infuencers call to action9. The ability to cause others to act10. The ability to sway others. To be perceived as knowledgeable

and providing relevant content11. Sharing compelling content that leads to one being considered

a thought leader and motivates others to Retweet, likeand post

12. The capacity to provoke an action/outcome13. The ability to change or redirect behavior14. Inspire and empower people to learn and grow15. Infuence is the ability to enable others to make condent decisions16. Ability to connect, communicate and engage with your target audience with a ar-reaching eect

17. Infuence: The ability through thought, word or deed, to inspire action among others who can also inspire action18. Creating or sharing content that is shared (or urther shared) on a consistent basis19. Presenting an idea a call to action in a way that entices others to embrace it20. The one who drives people21. The ability to steer the opinions or purchases o others. Even i a purchase isnt made, the ability to get others to check something out22. Convince23. Infuence is power attributed to trust24. Someone people reerence when discussing a subject or area25. The ability to generate interest either on a large scale or create conversation amongst other infuencers

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About the AuthorsBrian Solis is globally recognized as one o the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. A digital analystsociologist, and uturist, Solis has infuenced the eects o emerging media on the convergence o marketing, communications, and publishingHe is principal o FutureWorks, an award-winning New Media agency in Silicon Valley, and has led interactive and social programs oFortune 500 companies, notable celebrities, and Web 2.0 startups. BrianSolis.com is among the worlds leading business and marketing

online resources. Follow Brian on Twitter @briansolis.

Frank Strong is the director o PR or Vocus (NASDAQ: VOCS), the leading provider o on-demand sotware or public relations managementand also, or PRWeb, the online news distribution service o Vocus. Strong has more than 12 years o marketing and PR experience, primarilin the B2B space, and has worked both in-house and or agencies big and small such as The SheaHedges Group and Hill & Knowlton.

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About VocusVocus, Inc. (NASDAQ: VOCS) is a leading provider o on-demand sotware or public relations management. Our web-based sotwaresuite helps organizations o all sizes to undamentally change the way they communicate with both the media and the public, optimizingtheir public relations and increasing their ability to measure its impact. Our on-demand sotware addresses the critical unctions o publicrelations including media relations, news distribution and news monitoring. We deliver our solutions over the Internet using a securescalable application and system architecture, which allows our customers to eliminate expensive up-ront hardware and sotware costs and

to quickly deploy and adopt our on-demand sotware. Vocus is used by more than 7,100 organizations worldwide and is available in sevelanguages. Vocus is based in Lanham, MD with oces in North America, Europe and Asia. For more inormation, please visit www.vocuscom or call (800) 345-5572.

1. Public Engagement, The Evolution o Public Relations, October 30, 2008,http://www.edelman.com/speak_up/blog/umd/UMD%20Speech_10_28%20-%20Final_les/rame.htm2. Infuence is Bliss: The Gender Divide o Infuence on Twitter,http://www.briansolis.com/2010/08/infuence-is-bliss-the-gender-divide-o-infuence-on-twitter/

3. Why Case Studies are Overrated, September 14, 2010,http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2010/09/why-case-studies-are-overrated.html

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what makes an influencer by vocus and brian solis

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