CHAPTER 2

The Social Consumer: The Who, What, Why, and How Behind Sharing

It may feel like everyone (and their grandmother) spends their entire day liking, tweeting, and creating snaps—yet, that is not the reality. Everyone is not spending extensive time on social media and those who are do not use every social media platform. Overtime, consumers change their social media platform preferences and behavior. Just because a consumer group is using a platform today offers no guarantee that they will be using the same platform tomorrow. Indeed, social media is a fluid and evolving space. Many of the changes that occur in social media can be attributed to technological advancements and perhaps, more importantly, consumer behavior. The future of social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, and the manner in which consumers use them to both connect with companies and engage in sWOM is dependent on each platform’s ability to meet consumer needs. Therefore, to be successful in your social media efforts, it is crucial to understand social media consumer behavior. So, who is the social consumer and why should we care?

What Is a Social Consumer?

A social consumer is an individual who uses social media to both identify and share product-related information (i.e., articles and opinions) that assists their own or others’ consumption decision-making process. A social consumer may use Facebook to checkout a friend’s new outfit, LinkedIn to establish the credibility of a local home improvement company, Twitter to keep abreast of breaking industry news, YouTube to learn how to build a bookcase from Lowes, and Pinterest to bookmark future purchases. In other words, consumers are using social media to help them identify, evaluate, and use products and services. They are both viewing and engaging in communication with their personal networks and businesses. In addition, they are sharing information and offering their opinion on products, thereby potentially influencing the behavior of others. This chapter will explore the demographic and behavioral differences behind these consumers, with specific emphasis on a subset of social consumers—social influencers.

Who Are Social Consumers?

Globally, 2.3 billion individuals or one in three people are active social media users, with roughly 2 billion accessing their social media accounts from a mobile device (Kemp 2016). The heaviest users of social media, specifically social networking sites (SNS), are the young (e.g., 2015: 90 percent of 18–29-year-olds); however, older consumers are adopting SNS at an increasing rate. Between 2010 and 2015 usage among those aged 65 and over more than tripled (11 percent to 35 percent) (Perrin 2015). Adoption rates are also tied to education and income. Consumers with a higher level of education and income are the most likely to use social media (Perrin 2015). Historically in the United States it was women who boasted the highest use of social media. Today, the gender gap has narrowed. In 2015, 68 percent of women online used SNS, compared to 62 percent of men (Perrin 2015). However, gender differences do exist for specific social media platforms. To illustrate, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook are more frequently used by women. Pinterest is used almost three times more by women than men. YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, and LinkedIn have comparable adoption rates for both genders, whereas online forums (i.e., Reddit, Digg) are more popular with men (Anderson 2015b; Blattberg 2015). Even though YouTube adoption rates are similar, men spend up to 44 percent more time on the entertainment platform per month than women (Blattberg 2015).

Social media platforms adoption rates also vary by race and ethnicity. A 2015 study by Pew Research Center revealed that while Facebook is the most popular platforms across racial or ethnic lines, with comparable rates of usage, other platforms saw significant differences. For example, Instagram has higher usage rates with Hispanics and blacks, compared to white online users. Pinterest is significantly less popular with black online users. LinkedIn is equally adopted by whites and blacks, while Latinos usage is significantly less in comparison. Twitter usage is relatively equal between blacks (27 percent) and Hispanics (25 percent), with whites using it slightly less (21 percent) (Krogstad 2015; Duggan 2015). Figure 2.1 outlines the number of active users for each platform along with a brief demographic overview of the typical user.

Figure 2.1 Major social media platforms adoption rates and demographic overview

Source: Facebook (Duggan 2015), YouTube (Blattberg 2015), Instagram (Duggan 2015), Twitter: (Duggan 2015), Google+ (Delzio 2015), Snapchat (Frier 2016; Young 2016), Linkedln (Duggan 2015; Weber 2015), Pinterest (Duggan 2015; Griffith 2015; Lafferty 2015).

Consumers across the globe have adopted an average of eight different social media platforms. In the United States adoption rates are slightly lower, with the average consumer using six different platforms (GlobalWebIndex 2016). If consumers are limiting their social media usage to just one platform, chances are it is Facebook. As for the frequency of use, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter lend themselves to more active daily use. Pinterest and LinkedIn are more likely to be used on a weekly or less basis (Duggan et al. 2015).

How Do Social Consumers Access Social Media?

In 2016, smartphone adoption rates (72 percent) were almost as high as computers (75 percent). Adoption rates for tablets were at 42 percent (Google 2016). Young adults have even higher adoption rates—86 percent of 18–29-year-olds and 83 percent of 30–49-year-olds own a smartphone (Anderson 2015c). But, smartphones aren’t just for adults; in 2015, three in every four U.S. teenagers owned a smartphone (Lenhart 2015). Outside of age, smartphone ownership in the United States is somewhat equally divided between men and women, but skewed toward younger, college-educated consumers earning higher incomes. Minorities (i.e., blacks and Hispanics) have slightly higher ownership rates when compared to whites (Anderson 2015a). For 15 percent of smartphone consumers, their smartphone is their primary, if not only, means to access the Internet (Smith 2015).

Outside of simple access, it appears that consumers are spending considerably more time using social media on their smartphone compared to their desktop or laptop computers. Pew Research found that 89 percent of smartphone users accessed the Internet and 75 percent used SNS from their phones (Smith 2015). Yet, this is not true for every platform. Some platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat lend themselves to mobile usages, whereas consumers prefer to browse YouTube videos and check LinkedIn from a desktop. Facebook, Google+, and Pinterest are equally accessed from both desktop and mobile devices (Adobe 2015).

When we look at social sharing behavior (e.g., retweeting, liking, commenting, and sharing), mobile may have the upper hand. To illustrate, a 2015 study by social data and engagement platform ShareThis found that when consumers share online information, it is typically through a mobile device. Social sharing accounts for 20 percent of activity on smartphones, 13 percent on tablets, and 6.7 percent on desktops (ShareThis 2015). So, which social media platform generates the most amount of sharing? The answer is Facebook, which accounts for at least 81 percent of shares (Haslam 2015). The second most popular sharing platform is Pinterest (Delzio 2015).

Levels of Engagement and Social Consumer Roles

Social media satisfies a variety of purposes—it allows us to stay in touch with friends, network with professionals, stay current with news or events, provides entertainment, but it also provides us with the opportunity to share our opinions simultaneously with a large number of consumers and to engage with brands. Social consumers play a variety of roles that impact the consumer decision-making process: social listeners, social sharers, and social influencers. Before we delve into these roles, let’s first examine the levels of engagement possible within social media.

Charlene Li, CEO and Principal Analyst at Altimeter Group, research, developed an engagement pyramid (Figure 2.2). The engagement pyramid depicts various levels of engagement that social consumers and social employees can have within social media. It reveals that a substantial number of consumers and employees are engaged at the lower levels. For example, in the United States, 80 percent of consumers surveyed in 2010 were watchers and 61 percent were sharers (Li 2010).

Figure 2.2 The social media engagement pyramid

Source: Adapted from Li (2010).

The Watching segment’s engagement is limited to watching (or listening) to social media. In academic and industry research, these are commonly referred to as Lurkers (Gong, Lim, and Zhu 2015). They are passive observers to tweets, Instagram posts, articles that they see on Facebook, and videos they watch on YouTube. They are neither sharing nor interacting, but simply consuming information. Industry experts originally claimed that as much as 90 percent of social media were classified as Lurkers (Nielsen 2006). Others have since claimed that this number maybe inflated (Vision Critical 2014; Dembosky 2012). But regardless of the actual number, all agree that the majority of consumers are simply watching. The second level is Sharing. At this level, consumers become more engaged—they are not only listening and digesting information, but they are also frequent sharers of information. They retweet and share content produced by other individuals and companies’ content. Commenting is the next level, where consumers craft and share their opinions. Their opinions are not private, but rather part of a larger public dialog. Arguably, the next two steps take a considerable jump up in the engagement level when compared to commenting. In Producing, consumers create fresh new content (e.g., YouTube videos, Facebook posts) to share with others. The last level of engagement, Curation, is only accomplished by a small number of consumers. These individuals are very active on social media, sorting through content and sharing only the most relevant data with their networks. They make it easy for consumers to find what is important and relevant, and for that reason, they are seen as trusted advisors (Li 2010). As a company, you don’t want all of your consumers to simply watch (or listen) to your social media content. If all they do is watch, then their level of influence is low. Instead, you should strive to develop content that moves some of consumers up to higher levels of the engagement pyramid.

The three roles of social listeners, social sharers, and social influencers are related to engagement—although they are somewhat broader constructs (Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3 Social consumers

Social Listeners

A social listener, as the name implies, is an individual who observes or listens to conversations on social media. They participate in the “watching” level of engagement. This individual may be in a passive or active shopping mode. A passive shopping mode is when “information and advice [that] consumer[s] need to make a purchase comes to them unsolicited” (Belch and Belch 2014, 131). Consumers are continually collecting information that may come from a Facebook post, a tweet that they happen to glance at, or a pin that they came across when they were looking for a great guacamole recipe. Although consumers may not be interested in purchasing the product at that time, the fact that they have read the post allows them to accumulate knowledge that maybe helpful to them in the future or which they can share with others. For example, reading a review of a restaurant posted by a friend and then later sharing this information with another friend who is looking for a new place to eat. In truth, consumers are constantly in this passive stage—unknowingly accumulating knowledge for future use.

In the active shopping mode, consumers are “purposefully seeking information and/or assistance so [consumers] can make informed purchase decisions with confidence” (Belch and Belch 2014, 131). This hunt for product information often leads consumers to social media. A study undertaken by Forrester Research revealed that the average U.S. adult uses social media to both “discover” and “explore” new products (Fleming 2016). One study found that 23 percent consumers surveyed were reading ratings at least once a week and 27 percent a couple of times a month. GlobalWebIndex found that almost 25 percent of Facebook users surveyed were motivated to use the popular platform to “research/find products to buy” (Buckle 2016b). Younger consumers are more likely to use social media in their product search than are older consumers—more than 40 percent of 16–24-years-old are using social networks, such as Facebook, to help them make decisions. While age is certainly important, gender may play a bigger role in the likelihood of using social media to inform purchases. A 2014 study from the Society for New Communications Research found that women (31 percent) were considerably more likely than men (15 percent) to use social media in their purchasing decisions. For 66 percent of those surveyed, ratings were the first or second most important information source of information when purchasing from an unfamiliar company (DiMauro and Bulmer 2014).

When Do They Listen?

Let’s face it; we are not always receptive to other people’s advice. Sometimes, we simply don’t care that Sally loves her new car, found a new recipe on Pinterest, or looks fabulous in those Instagramed shoes. But, there are other times where we are not only interested, but are more receptive to these social recommendations to assist us in our purchase. We are certainly more receptive when we are in the active shopping mode—but there are other factors that make us more likely to listen to sWOM?

Academic research on traditional WOM and eWOM, coupled with industry studies addressing social media, has identified a number of conditions when social consumers are more likely to seek out and are receptive to social recommendations and information:

• Purchasing a product for the first time or little experience within the product category (Bughin 2015; Gilly et al. 1998).

• High involvement purchase (e.g., higher level of risk associated with purchase) (Beatty and Smith 1987).

• Younger consumers (18–34-year-olds) (Mixon 2016).

• Americans with more than $100,000 yearly household income (Mixon 2016).

• When the message is personalized and effectively targeted (Bughin 2015).

• For specific types of product categories (i.e., 40 to 50 percent of consumers used social recommendations when selecting travel and investment services) (Bughin 2015).

• Consumers who use a search engine in researching a product are also more likely to use social media in their pre-purchase investigation (Bughin 2015).

• When the recommendation is received from a highly credible source (Park and Lee 2009; Gilly et al. 1998).

• Influence is stronger when the “tie strength” is strong. In other words, your relationship or connection with the recommender is robust (i.e., friends or family) (Brown and Reingen 1987).

Social Sharers

Not all social media users share information. In fact, the act of social sharing is relatively uncommon (Haslam 2015). Yet, many of us do share, retweet, and comment. Social sharers are consumers who not only post information about products or services via social media, but they can also share their opinion and that of others. These consumers are sharing, commenting, and producing. One study indicated that 24 percent of individuals shared content online at least once a month (DiMauro and Bulmer 2014), and often, this content comes from a social influencer—an individual who is recognized as an expert in a particular area. A study sponsored by Twitter and Annalect found that 20 percent of the consumers surveyed have shared content they saw from an influencer (Swant 2016). Their level of engagement on social media can include not only sharing, but also commenting and even creating content.

There are two types of social sharing: implicit sharing—that relates to products (e.g., sharing a news article involving a product or endorsing a company through a “like”) and explicit sharing—sharing that includes a discussion about a product (e.g., creating a post that explicitly discusses a product). Both types are influential. A 2015 Adobe Study of European social media users (UK, France, Germany, Sweden, and Netherlands) found that implicit (i.e., follows or likes) and explicit endorsement (i.e., mentions) varied by platform, with endorsements more prevalent on Facebook and Instagram compared to Google+ and Snapchat (Figure 2.4). Interestingly, 18–24-year-olds depended considerably more on the visually oriented platform Instagram (72 percent) than the average social media user (Watt 2016).

Figure 2.4 Percentage of consumers who have made implicit and explicit endorsements on social media

Source: Watt (2016).

Implicit sharing can come in many forms. It can be simply retweeting a news article without providing a personalized comment or providing a simple brand endorsement. In other words, the endorsement is implied. A “like” on Facebook or Instagram, a “favorite” on Twitter and a “follow” on Facebook are some of the many examples of quick implicit brand endorsements. This form of endorsement is very common perhaps, in part, to the ease at which a consumer can communicate their support. For example, “liking” a product requires less effort than a writing a comment. A global study of social media users found that 84 percent of those surveyed “liked” or followed a brand (eMarketer 2015).

Explicit brand endorsements are more involved. They can be textual, visual, or both. Textual endorsements include personalized messages, comments, or hashtags, which may be attached to an existing piece of communication. For example, retweeting an article and including a comment and a hashtag. Hashtags can be a fast and effective way of endorsing a product (e.g., #ShareaCoke, #WantAnR8, #ShareYourEars, #PepsiPerfect). Consumers can also embed their product endorsements through visual communication. For instance, a consumer may model their new Gucci sunglasses on Instagram or pin an image of a Pottery Barn couch they are planning to purchase to their personal decorating board on Pinterest. They can also do all three—post a picture with a comment and a hashtag. This type of sharing represents a higher level of engagement, it requires more time and effort, but may be more influential.

Some of the most involved product discussions on social media are those which describe a consumer’s experience with a product. Both positive and negative brand experiences are commonly shared via social media (eMarketer 2015). A 2015 survey by Social@Ogilvy found that 58 percent of respondents shared both good and bad brand experiences. The product discussions may contain textual descriptions of a product’s strengths and weaknesses, but they may also include images and video. These visual modes of communication are powerful in their ability to influence (Chapter 6). The inclusion of hashtags can increase the likelihood of the post being discovered in a search. The most popular platforms for sharing product recommendations are YouTube and Facebook (Adobe 2015). Both of these platforms make it easy to create devoted fan pages and channels to specific brands.

Why Do We Share?

There are many reasons behind why we share within social media. Some studies have addressed this question broadly, whereas others have examined sharing behavior within specific social media platforms. Understanding what drives consumers to push the “retweet” or “share” button directly impacts the type of content and conversation you hope to have with your target market.

In 2011, the New York Times conducted a comprehensive U.S.-based study examining the motivations behind social media sharing. The “Psychology of Sharing” study involved ethnographies, focus groups, and a survey of 2,500 social sharers across a variety of social media platforms. The researchers identified five separate motivations for sharing: “to bring valuable and entertaining content to others; to define ourselves to others; to grow and nourish our relationships; self-fulfillment; and to get the word out about causes or brands” (The New York Times 2011). Underlining each of these motives was the importance of relationships. In addition, the study identified “six personas of online sharers” (The New York Times 2011):

Other studies examining consumers motivation to use social media revealed similar results. For instance, the 2013 Ipsos study of 12,420 global online “sharers” in 24 countries revealed that consumers are motivated “to share interesting things” (61 percent), important things (43 percent), funny things (43 percent), “to let others know what I believe in and who I really am” (37 percent), and recommending a product (30 percent) were the most popular motivations (Ipsos 2013). These echo some of the motivating factors behind altruists, hipsters, and selectives personas. Outside of the global averages, the study revealed some interesting cross-cultural differences. To illustrate, Turkey reported “shares important things” as a much higher motivating factor (67 percent vs. the 43 percent global average) in sharing. Japanese consumers are less likely to use social media “to let others know what I believe in and who I am really am” than other countries (19 percent vs. 37 percent global average) (Ipsos 2013). Having an extended conversation of country or cultural differences is beyond the scope of this book—however, it emphasizes that marketers must also consider the innate cultural differences that occur both within and between our global borders.

Both of these studies reveal somewhat similar themes—consumers are sharing information that can bring value to other people’s lives. For information to be shared, it needs to be interesting, funny, or unique. We share information out of a desire to help others (e.g., alturists). We also share information to help form our identities (e.g., hipsters). Through social media, we project to others what we want to believe and want others to believe about us.

So, which persona or personas does your target market fall into? Are they hipsters? Careerists? Both? What motivates your consumers? This New York Times sharing typology may be helpful in guiding your content planning and marketing message. However, it would be helpful for you to conduct an analysis of your target market sharing behavior on your social media platforms and perform primary research exploring their specific sharing motivations. More on this in Chapter 3.

Thus far, we have talked about general sharing motives, but what motivates us to engage with brands online and share information about our product experiences? To begin, there are a number of reasons why consumers “like” and follow a brand. The top reasons are to hear about products and offers, provide direct feedback, to interact with the company, be entertained, and to show an association with the organization (eMarketer 2015). Academic studies addressing traditional WOM (although still applicable for sWOM) have identified a number of factors that increase the likelihood of sharing product experiences. Briefly, consumers often post about products when they are very satisfied or very dissatisfied (Bowman and Narayandas 2001; Anderson 1998) when the product is new (Richins and Bloch 1986; Bone 1992), when there is high product involvement (i.e., the product is relevant to consumers) (Richins and Bloch 1986), and when the consumer is highly involved in the marketplace (i.e., market mavens) (Slama and Tashcian 1985).

Marketers need to understand sharing behavior so that they may identify the type of content that is most likely to be shared on each social media platform. Unfortunately, the act of sharing does not mean that that individual will be influential. A social consumer can post a rave review about a product, but what if that consumer has only a handful of followers and what if they never see the review? In this case, the social sharer may have limited influence on the behavior of others. For that reason, it is important the companies seek out social influencers.

Social Influencers

There are a relatively small number of social consumers that have a disproportionately large amount of social influence when it comes to sWOM. One study by McKinsey found that 5 percent of “power influencers” in the shoes and clothing product category were responsible for 45 percent of product recommendations (Bughin 2015). In this book, we will refer to these “power influencers” as social influencers. In the marketing world, they are commonly referred to as opinion leaders. Influencers (or opinion leaders) typically focus their expertise in a specific area (i.e., fashion, food, exercise). Social influencers, those who influence the opinions and behaviors of others are engaged at all levels—they share, comment, produce, and curate. Their recommendations are surprisingly powerful. A joint study by Twitter and Annalect found that recommendations from influencers on Twitter were relied upon almost as much as recommendations from friends (56 percent relied on friends vs. 49 percent for influencers). Forty percent of those surveyed admitted to purchasing a product as a result of an influencer’s recommendation (Swant 2016).

Marketers recognize the importance and value of these influencers, which is why formal influencer campaigns, and the agencies that support them, have become commonplace. A 2015 study found that 84 percent of worldwide marketing/communications professionals had plans to employ at least one influencer campaign in the upcoming year, and 81 percent of those companies that had previously conducted an influencer campaign believed it to be effective (Augure 2015). Influencer programs are seen as effective at fulfilling three objectives: building brand awareness, generating sales lead, and increasing consumer loyalty.

Social influencers come in many shapes and forms, with varying levels of influence. They can provide companies with completely informal, organic support (or non-support). Alternatively, their role can also be much more formal, with input and compensation provided by the company. Following are some of the most common types of social influencer categories, categorized as paid and unpaid.

Paid Influencers

Paid Social Influencers

These are everyday consumers, brand fans, and/or experts who are incentivized for their product-related sWOM posts. They typically have large social media followings. These compensated efforts last for a relatively short period of time and are dedicated to a specific marketing campaign (Sussman 2015). Paid social influencers can become self-built stars because of their social media activities. Through social media, they become credible subject matter experts (e.g., fashion, cosmetics). Social influencers may not have as many followers as a celebrity, and therefore may not generate as much exposure for a brand, but their followers are more concentrated allowing for more targeted marketing (Hitz 2016). Research confirms that consumers trust social influencers almost as much as they do their friends (Hitz 2016). As a social influencer’s following grows, so too does her fee for social media word of mouth endorsements. Some social influencers now command as much as celebrities for their social posts. To illustrate, social media Vine darling Logan Paul is said to make over $100,000 per sponsored video post (Chen 2016a). Jawdropping—but he may be worth it! Mr. Paul’s paid social media postings were credited for 25,000 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card purchases (32 percent of the month’s total) (Stanley 2016). Even social influencer dogs (yes, we are serious) are getting into the act and can receive $2,000–$10,000 per sponsored Instagram post (Birkner 2016). Now that is something to woof at.

Brand Ambassadors

Brand ambassadors are everyday consumers, brand fans, experts that enter into a long-term relationship to endorse a product. Brand ambassadors are frequently paid to represent the brand (Sussman 2015). Instead of paying for a one-off post or a series of posts for a dedicated marketing campaign, brand ambassadors become the spokespeople for a brand. An ambassador is someone that is passionate about your brand and who is already aligned (through their organic social media posts) with the brand’s values and messaging. Their brand relationship is apparent throughout social channels. Brands can pay them on a retainer basis and often will give them special access to brand information (Sussman 2015).

Celebrities

“Traditional” celebrities, those whose stardom was originally gained outside of the social media sphere, can also become powerful influencers for brands. Social media analytics firm, D’Marie suggests that celebrities such as Kendall Jenner and Selena Gomez can provide a firm 12 times the return on investment (ROI) compared to “average digital marketing efforts.” With a price tag of $230,000 per social media for Jenner and Gomez to post across social media platforms—that is quite a return (Heine 2015).

Unpaid Influencers

Everyday Consumers

Businesses may not need big names and famous faces when they have loyal, happy, and social savvy consumers to help spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other popular platforms. Every day consumers and brand fans can organically post and also be encouraged to spread sWOM.

A simple example of encouraging a consumer to share her experience on Facebook or post a picture of her recent purchase on Instagram is through store signage (Figure 2.5).

Figure 2.5 Share a coke

Brand Advocates

Brand advocates can be considered “super fans” or “brand loyalists” who are not incentivized or compensated for their posts. Their love of the brand is organically infused within their social media posts and the brand itself may be an extension of their identity (i.e., they mention the brand in their bio, social media profile image, or even have a brand tattoo).

Experts

Experts (at least in this typology) are those consumers who acquired their expertise outside of the social media sphere in RL (real life). They accumulated their credibility through industry experience, academic degrees, or “real-life” experience. Social media is simply a communication outlet that they use to share their knowledge. According to the 2016 Global Edelman Trust Barometer, technical experts (67 percent) and academic experts (64 percent) garner considerably more trust than an employee (52 percent), CEO (49 percent), or government official (35 percent) (Edelman 2016).

Social Influence Marketing Programs

The diversity of online influencer types warrants a variety of marketing programs. Some of these programs capitalize on the social influence of everyday consumers (i.e., referral programs), whereas others focus on paid social influencers. Sponsored social programs—those that focus on paid social influencers—are becoming more common and are almost as widely used as more traditional display advertising tactics, such as online display (Halverson Group 2015). The following section explores both referral and influencer programs.

Referral Programs

Referral programs drive purchase conversion. They can also be considered another form of paid media. In a nutshell, it comes down to having individuals taking an action based on friends or family’s opinion on a product (ReferralCandy 2016). Certainly, this process occurs organically when consumers are reading opinions from their friends and family on Twitter or Facebook, but increasingly, companies are coordinating their referral efforts, many of which directly involve social media. For example, ride-sharing company Uber has routinely relied on consumers inviting their networks via Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and e-mail to ride with Uber. Current and new users both get $20 credit #Uberlove! They also use referrals to recruit drivers. Uber’s referral program works first and foremost because people are genuinely happy with the service. Second, Uber has made it very easy to share by integrating a number of “share” options via the smartphone app (i.e., share on Facebook, tweet, text, and e-mail). Third, they offer an incentive for both the referrer and the referee—a double win.

The request for a referral can occur in a number of ways—although not all of them involve social media. Often, companies provide a link on the website’s home page “invite a friend, get X.” After clicking on the link, users are given more details on the incentive and provided with a number of sharing options. It can also be built into the purchase or order screen. If you have a great product, why limit your referral requests to one page—include a referral button on every page. Outside of having a great product, referrals need enticing incentives. As the Uber example illustrated, double incentives (for the referrer and the referee) worked well. You can also use a credit system referral program—for X number of referrals an individual can earn points, which can lead to a fixed dollar amount off their next purchase or even a specific prize. Another option would reward referrers with a specific percent of the dollar value of a friend’s purchase. Figure 2.6 outlines the keys to successful referral program (adapted from Veerasamy n.d).

Figure 2.6 5 Keys to a successful referral program

Influencer Programs

The importance of identifying and creating relationships with influencers is well established. In truth, identifying “the right” influencers is one of the hardest tasks. Companies such as Klear who provide global influencers across platforms and interest areas can, for a fee, offer you access to their influencer library. However, a good and less expensive place to start is to create a profile of what you consider to be the ideal influencer (e.g., age, gender, location) and then try to find a match. Monitor social media and follow hashtag conversations that your ideal influencers would be participating in. Set up a Google search for your brand and see who is talking about it. You can also use monitoring tools such as Hootsuite and Social Mention to track brand-related conversations (Matthews 2013). In the appendix of this book, we offer some suggestions of websites and services that can assist in identifying influencers.

Identifying a potential influencer is only the first step in establishing an influencer program. Next, you need to understand the extent of the social influence that the individual possesses. Thankfully, there are a number of social influence analytic tools that allow you to measure an individual’s level of social influence (Klout, Brandwatch, and so on). The most well-known social influence tool is, perhaps, Klout. Klout is a third-party application that ranks social media users on a scale of 1–100 based on their social media influence level. The average Klout score is 40 and a very high score of 63 would put you in the top 5 percent (Klout 2013). While the algorithm is unknown and dynamic, Klout does look at the frequency of posts, along with the number of followers, likes, retweets, and shares an individual receives to determine their level of influence.

When selecting your influencers pay attention to their social influence score and don’t use the influencer’s number of followers as your only deciding factor. You also need to pay attention to the level of engagement that they have with social media. Content quality is also an important consideration in your selection (Halverson Group 2015). You will want to make sure that the quality of their content and their communication style is consistent with your brand and intended message. The best influencer programs give influencers the freedom to make their own content, so you need to ensure that you have a good fit. While some brands go after the big social media fish (e.g., Keds and Taylor Swift and her 74,900,000+ Facebook followers), individuals with smaller follower counts can also be influential (and sometimes even more influential) (Chen 2016b). Micro-influencers, those with followings between 10,000–100,000 are being considered more frequently for campaigns. The term “power middle influencers” social media users that have followers between 100,000 and 200,000 has also been put forward to further segment the social influencer category (Chen 2016b).

Marketers can obviously choose from a wide selection of social platforms, but they also have a number of choices on the type of content they sponsor. IZEA’s 2015 State of Sponsored Social study revealed that the most popular sponsored social elements were sponsored Facebook status update (60 percent), followed by brand “like” (56 percent), brand “follow” (48 percent), sponsored tweets (40 percent), and sponsored blog posts (32 percent). Sponsored pins (7 percent) and sponsored Vines (5 percent) were some of the least popular social elements (Halverson Group 2015).

Structuring Influencers Programs

Marketers need to approach a relationship with a potential influencer just like a new budding friendship. Personalize your e-mail, meet them in person. Know what they like, their interests, their posting style. Marketers really need to sell their brand to the influencer—explain why it is a good fit for them, why the influencer’s audience would find the brand discussion interesting or relevant (Halverson Group 2015).

Collaboration is the key when working with an influencer. Marketers need to meet with influencers and provide them with sample content and a general outline of their story—but influencers need to have input, “skin in the game”—because it is their playground you are asking your brand to play on. In truth, the reason why you are approaching an influencer is that you want to capitalize on their preexisting consumer relationships. You are also relying on their communication and content expertise within specific social media platforms (Maoz 2016a).

Following is a list of items adapted from Klear’s influencer informational guidelines (Maoz 2016b):

• Company and product overview: If an influencer isn’t already familiar with brand, they should be told about the company and the product.

• Campaign overview: They should be given a description of the campaign, its objectives, and the theme.

• Creative: Outline the key messaging points you are looking for, highlight great examples of posts the influencer has previously done, and identify other social media posts that are consistent with the creative approach you would like to see.

• Social media platforms: Identify which platforms you would like (ideally) to see the influencer post on.

• Content volume and disclosure: Identify the preferred number and frequency of posting. Also, explicitly state your method of disclosure.

While creative freedom is good, it is important to create explicit guidelines and a firm contract that states your goals and expectations (Maoz 2016a). Specifying frequency is an important first step in having some control. More than once a week and two or three times of month are the most common sponsored posting durations (Halverson Group 2015).

Incentives matter when encouraging consumers to discuss your product via social media. Eighty-eight percent of the U.S. consumers and 95 percent of the 18–34-year-olds surveyed indicated they would like an incentive to share. The incentive of choice: money (Mixon 2016). Free products, discounts or coupons, free services, gift cards, and trips or travel are other desired forms of compensation (Halverson Group 2015). There are legal and regulatory issues that companies must consider when engaging in incentivized or paid relationships with consumers. Chapter 4 examines this in detail.

The last consideration you need to make when launching a sWOM campaign is seeding. The process of seeding is just as it sounds—carefully selecting multiple people or influencers (seeds) to distribute your content or product with the hope that it will grow and flourish. The end result is not only exposure to your content or product, but, hopefully, conversions (i.e., product sales). Academic research proposes that seeding programs benefit marketers through market expansion and consumer acceleration. In other words, consumers that wouldn’t normally purchase the product do and consumers that would normally have purchased it do so at an earlier time (Libai, Muller, and Peres 2013). The question is of course, who do you pick? Seeding programs are more effective when they target social influencers as opposed to randomly selecting consumers (Hinz et al. 2011). These social influencers can be broken into three seeding groups (Libai, Muller, and Peres 2013):

• Hubs: Individuals that are well-connected (Goldenberg et al. 2009).

• Experts/Persuaders: These individuals are effective not for their audience size, but for their ability to persuade. This is drawn from their subject expertise.

• Bridge: These individuals bridge different social networks—they are connected to many different groups of consumers. Their power is in their ability to spread information outside to new groups of consumers (Hinz et al. 2011).

The good news is that all of the work that companies invest in social influencer campaigns can pay off. One 2016 study of Twitter users found that 47 percent of the consumers purchased a product based on the recommendation of social influencers (Swant 2016). When Twitter users saw tweets from brands, their purchase intent increased 2.7 times, but when they saw tweets from both the brand and social influencers, purchase intent increased to 5.2 times (Swant 2016). Now that is something to tweet about!

The writing is on the (Facebook) wall, or in this case, the screen—we love social media. For every 3 minutes we spent online in 2016, 1 minute was on a social platform (Buckle 2016a). Aided by mobile devices, social media provides us with the opportunity to engage with brands and share our opinions with the masses. It also has the potential to change the way we do business.

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