A survey conducted by Nielsen across 58 countries in 2013 showed that when it came to brands and products, 84 per cent of consumers trusted the advice of people they knew. Consumer opinions posted online were next in line, with 70 per cent of people trusting them. In contrast, nearly all forms of advertising were trusted by around 60 per cent, or less, of the consumers.
Wizened marketers always held that ‘word-of-mouth’ was the gold standard in winning converts. Before the internet era, this holy grail was as impossible to attain as it was for King Arthur’s knights, given the sheer impossibility of creating a groundswell of critical mass that could reach far and wide. The internet, though, made it easy to spread information far and wide almost instantaneously. For example, PSY’s Gangnam Style , the popular K-pop song that took the world by storm, hit one billion views in less than six months. This may not have been possible if not for the internet.
Watch: PSY - Gangnam Style
If the internet made it possible to widely distribute information, social media has made it easy to disseminate personal opinion, thus making ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising a possibility for brands. Which is why social media tools are popular with marketers.
Social media performs two functions — one , it gives the much-sought-after peer endorsement that marketers cherish and, two , it allows marketers to fine-tune their advertising strategies at a micro level, even to the extent of targeting a single consumer.
Power of peer endorsement
Humans are, after all, social animals. It is natural that people who claim ‘membership’ of a cohort will tend to place faith in what other members of the cohort do or profess to do. Thus, people — whether they are looking to buy a car or select the right hair-colouring brand — are likely to reach out to their friends and seek their opinions. Social media makes this task easy as it is organised around the principle of allowing individuals to invite people they share a bond with to be a part of their network.
Peer endorsement is not restricted to seeking opinions. We want to share significant events in our lives. It follows, then, that when we have a pleasant experience, we like to share our joy. Again, social media provides us an opportunity to share and shape opinions as well as our knowledge about brands.
Thus, as is apparent, marketers have access to a far-reaching platform that works in spreading ‘word-of-mouth’ advertising swiftly and to large numbers of people.
This seeking and sharing of opinion is not restricted to just one network. Each member of a social media group is also member of other groups. So, when members share information they have received, it has the effect of propagating to other networks, enabling a far larger circulation of the endorsement.
Often, it is this feature of social media that marketers covet and seek to energise.
Virality vs network effect
There are many instances when social media has had a quantum effect — far in excess of the wildest imaginations of users — in propagating a phenomenon. These, very often referred to as ‘viral’ marketing, are rare events, despite the hype surrounding it.
The occurrence of virality is intrinsic to the phenomenon, whether it is music, brands, or advertising. Social media, only enlarges it and adds velocity to it.
The popularity of Gangnam Style began somewhat slowly in comparison to that for Dove Beauty Sketches. However, the popularity endured longer for the former rather than the latter.
Watch: Dove Beauty Sketches
Two lessons emerge from this. First is that when there is an innate difference ( Gangnam Style ) in the phenomenon, the virality endures longer, and, two, when it is induced (Dove Beauty Sketches), virality is short-lived. The second is that deeper-seated virality achieves depth (that is, shared by more people) and width (that is, shared more often).
Those who belong to multiple groups on any popular social media platform will notice this when the same post is shared across several groups!
As already observed, while virality is a much-desired result, it is rarely obtained. Instead of aiming for virality all the time, marketers should focus on tapping the network effect, where sharing is catalysed in micro-groups, rather than the big-bang impact that is rarely achieved.
Network effect is created when small groups of people share posts among themselves and re-share the post with other small groups they are members of. At a micro level, this impact may seem small. However, when such sharing is done by large numbers of micro groups, the collective impact is large. Successful marketers use this approach.
Creating the network effect
This is where social media advertising really comes into its own.
Conventional advertising, whether offline or online, looks at masses of consumers and targets advertising at them. In this method, typically, the advertising content is a ‘one-shoe-fits-all’ approach. While this has the advantage of scale, it loses out in the response, since all viewers of the advertising may not be moved in the same way.
Social media platforms, on the other hand, allow for segmenting audiences in many different ways and create messages tailored to each segment. This allows marketers to micro-target consumers and deliver messages that will be more meaningful to each segment.
Additionally, given that most social media platforms are within the same ecosystem, it is possible to reach out to audiences based on the success in micro-targeting. Thus, marketers can create micro-audiences based on the profiles of those who respond to the advertising and reach out to other audiences whom they (the marketers) may not have thought of.
Where does social media fit in?
Social media marketing is a powerful tool — independently, as well as in conjunction with other online marketing tools such as search, e-mail or programmatic.
The key role it fills is in providing a human touch to marketing messages that are otherwise impersonal, by providing reassurance from somebody known and trusted, rather than from just a faceless corporation.