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24/12/2010 by
6741 views

You Are A Brand’s New Celebrity

In this article I will show you why we, all of us, are the new movers and shakers of the world… socially (both on- and offline)!

Most of us have an opinion we share with the world, whether you like it or not your opinion, as insignificant you might think it is, influences others. Brands need to identify influencers to make sure that their message will be translated correctly to their target audience.

There is no absolute marketing message that fits all, however an influencer can translate a brand message in the right context to their peers. You have the power to help a brand to get their promise over correctly and in the right tone of voice. That makes us Stars.

Who Are The Stars
On a daily base we meander the web to find the right place to eat, the best place to shop, to figure out where we can get the best deals or where we should stay. While scouring the web for the information we are influenced by;

  • Key Influencers; independent blogs, people with blogs, huge twitter followers and they rarely know their audience properly.
  • Social Influencers; User Generated content, everyday people that participate in social platforms. Sharing comments, reviews and sorts. These people influence brand affinity and sometimes they know their peers personally.
  • Celebrities, Known Peer Influencers: this is a brands closest link to the purchasing decision and the consumer. These are family members, friends or part of your circle of trust, ultimately they have to live with the results of their peers decision as well.

Awareness – Consideration – Preference
It is generally known that ‘known peer influencers’  top the list. When we take the general marketing funnel in account (Awareness – Consideration – Preference), we can identify the level of influence down the line. 
The Awareness and Preference phase are considered to be the two most important ones and this is where the level of influence by our known peers doubles and independent blogs, User Generated Content and anonymous peers hardly exert any influence. Within the Consideration phase; known peers is still at the lead, but people tend to reach out to independent blogs, User Generated Content and they look at anonymous peer reviews.

So basically this means that our known peers are the Stars of the show and influence us the most.

Top Down Branding Is Going Impotent
Because the level of influence is the biggest from our known peers, brands should obsessively analyse the social realm; blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Sports Clubs etc. not only to understand who has the most followers but also who is the most influential. You are the Celebrity they should be following.

Social network memberships continue to grow; this means that we are choosing to concentrate our networks instead of spreading ourselves thinly. Apart from the social network we choose the biggest learning is that we are spending more and more of our time interacting with each other and sharing our thoughts, opinions and preferences.

The implications for brands is that they must socialise with consumers, they must develop a credible share of voice and quite important… yes again a Return On Something: brands must provide a Return On Emotion to their clients. Basically means that a relationship is giving and taking; the more we the “stars” have the feeling that our relationship is in balance; the more loyal we tend to be. Hence, adding more value to our peers and successively to a brand!

Celebrity
Brands can’t afford to keep pushing their message on people; they will have to acknowledge that you are the star and that we aren’t meddlesome people.. we genuinely help. So brands will focus on thoughtful ways to empower you to influence your peers. Every brand can acquire a customer, but how do they keep them and make them a fan?
They turn them into Celebrities!

Sources:
Mashable
Razorfish

 

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