Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

The online social media explosion continues with daily news coverage highlighting companies and advertisers wishing to harness the power of WOM by tapping into online communities. Solely engaging and activating the invaluable and trusted “influencers” at their online spaces, however, has left one critical WOM strategy neglected and underutilized… OFFLINE Word of Mouth Marketing tactics.

Marketers are tripping over each other in the race to reach “influentials” who, according to a recent EMarketer story, make up 18% of all online communities.

The numbers are impressive. It is reported that the population of American Internet users considered word of mouth “influencers” will be 28 million strong next year, but advertisers who are hoping for a cost-effective and measurable way to grab hold of the online social media phenomenon and get the loudest “influencers” to scream their message are missing a valuable piece of the equation.

According to Debra Aho Williamson, author of the eMarketer WOM Marketing report (via MediaPost), “While there’s a small segment of people who are very vocal, posting reviews and blogs, there is this vast middle ground of people who are moderately influential, the ones who pass a video on to their friends, or find a cool site and tell their husband. Marketers can’t forget consumers who are influential in their smaller circle, both on- and offline.”

For example, 64% of “influencers” do online research after seeing or hearing an ad on TV, radio, or in a magazine — but only 30% notice a Web ad and later visit the Web site or check out the product in a store.

Some additional stats on “influencers”:
Influencers over-index in consumption of news vs. the general population such as reading the local paper in a given month (84% vs. 68%) and visiting a broadcast news site monthly (48% vs. 38%).

Related Links:

Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Winning Friends and Influencing Customers (eMarketer)
EMarketer: Brands Shouldn’t Ignore Offline WOM Activity (MediaPost)