Because the consumers know and trust their referent influencers, they feel confident that their advisers are also careful and punctilious. Because they’re people they trust, they value their advice and guidance over most other people. Referent influencers influence purchasing decisions more than anyone else at the consideration phase of the marketing funnel, according to various studies.
For example, if Shiv decides to make a high-consideration purchase such as a car, he might start by going online and discussing different cars with a few friends on Facebook or via Twitter. And then that weekend, he might meet those friends over coffee and carry on that discussion in person. They tell him about the cars they like, their own purchasing experiences, and which dealerships they’ve had experience with. This influence is considered referent influence because these friends sway him by the strength of their charisma and interpersonal skills, and they have this sway because he respects them. What’s worth pointing out, though, is that the friends whom he knows to be most informed about cars will probably influence him more than the others.
Expert influencers
A consumer who’s mulling over a high-consideration purchase might also consult an expert influencer. An expert influencer is an authority on the product that the consumer is considering purchasing. Also called key influencers, they typically have their own blogs and huge Twitter followings, and rarely know their audiences personally.
When considering buying a car, suppose Shiv doesn’t turn just to friends for advice, but also visits some car review websites like Edmunds (www.edmunds.com, shown in Figure 1-3). On these review websites, experts rate, rank, and pass judgment on cars. Because they put the cars through various tests and know the cars inside and out, their opinions matter. They’re the expert social influencers — people whom Shiv may not know personally but are recognized as authorities in a certain field. Their influence is derived from the skills or expertise that they — or broadly speaking, their organization — possess based on training.
FIGURE 1-3: The Edmunds car view website.
Positional influencers
A positional influencer is closest to both the purchasing decision and to the consumer. Called peer influencers sometimes, they are typically family members or part of the consumer’s inner circle. They influence purchasing decisions most directly at the point of purchase and have to live with the results of their family member’s or friend’s decision as well.
As Shiv says, “I know that I can’t make a high-consideration purchase like a car purchase without discussing it with my wife. Invariably, she’ll drive the car, too, and sit in it as much as I will. It is as much her purchase as it is mine. Her opinion matters more than anyone else’s in this case. After all, I need to discuss with her the relative pricing of the cars available and whether one is more suitable for our family versus another.” This person derives her influence from her relative position and duties in relation to the actual consumer. She’s closest to the purchasing decision and to the consumer and, therefore, has the most social influence.
Influencing on digital platforms
As we discuss earlier in the chapter, social influence impacts every purchasing decision and always has in some form or other. Each time people make purchasing decisions, they ask each other for advice. Sometimes they depend upon an expert’s guidance, and in other cases, that advice comes from people they know.
So why is influence such a big deal today? This is because Internet consumption, and social media consumption specifically, have hit the mainstream. For example, as of June 2019, the social network platform Facebook had 2.41 billion users worldwide, giving it a population larger than any single country in the world, including China and India. That’s a lot of people talking about a lot of things (including products) to a lot of people! But there’s more to it than that. Social media traffic referrals have risen dramatically in the last few years. Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter have 18 percent, 7.5 percent, 0.73 percent, and 0.73 percent, respectively, of global referrals per Shareaholic (February 2018). These numbers show how much people are also acting on the influence of others — they’re visiting the websites that they’re being told to visit.
People are making more and more purchasing decisions online every day. It’s as natural to buy a product online as it is to go into a physical store. People buy clothes and shoes online, not to mention high-consideration items such as computers, cars (yes, cars), and jewelry. But that’s not all. Not only are consumers buying online, but thanks to social media, they’re also conversing, socializing, and influencing each other online on a scale never seen before.
Call it a shift in web behavior, but the way people make decisions in the real world is finally moving to the Internet in a big way. The social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube (shown in Figure 1-4), are just a few of the places where people are asking each other for advice and guidance as they make purchasing decisions. Smart companies are realizing that they should no longer design their e-commerce websites to convince buyers to make purchasing decisions in isolation. Rather, they need to design the websites to allow consumers to bring their social influencers into the decision-making process. As consumers, people expect and want that because that’s how they’re used to making their purchasing decisions. That’s why social media marketing matters today. People are influencing and are being influenced by each other every day on the social network platforms, community websites, and destination sites.
FIGURE 1-4: YouTube.
Comparing Social Media Marketing with Other Marketing Efforts
It isn’t enough to deploy social media marketing in isolation of every other marketing effort. If you do, you’re sure to fail. Your customers will notice that you have a disjointed, conflicted story — depending on where and how you’re interacting with them. Therefore, it’s important to understand how you can integrate your social media marketing within your other, more traditional marketing — direct mail, public relations, display advertising, and promotions.
