By Liam McCance …

Universal McCann recently conducted a global research study on a topic very close to our hearts at Vocanic – Digital Influence.

The UM study ‘When did we all start trusting strangers? How the internet turned us all into influencers’ was conducted across 29 countries engaging 17,000 internet users to gauge what they were influenced by, how they influenced others and how social networks have shifted the power of influence.

Beyond confirming the stuff we kind of already knew – the rise of social media,

• 30.8% write a blog

• 28% give opinions on brands on their blog

• 66.9% use instant messenger to communicate with friends and like myself

• 18.3% are using online social networks to try and find love.

UM’s study reveals some major shifts in trust behaviour of people when they are looking for a recommendation on a product or service.

Semantics: UM’s Super Influencers = Vocanic’s Influencers

Although we are extremely appreciative of UM conducting such an extensive study and releasing the findings, we do however have some differences of opinion when it comes to terminology.  UM classifies all people as influencers because of the voice social media has given everyone,  were as we at Vocanic only really classify people as influencers if they are highly contagious (socially) and have a large social network. This is probably closer to what UM refers to as Super influencers.
Regardless a couple of key conclusions from the study included;

‘Anyone can influence anyone: We now trust groups of strangers as much as our closest friends.’ This is driven by people exerting casual influence via voting buttons or commenting. Which directly drive the next conclusion;

‘Everybody is an influencer: The power to influence no longer belongs to the experts. Personal recommendations are stronger influences than any traditional paid for communications except sampling. A clear demonstration that being active in social media will become increasingly important for brands.’ Enough said

‘New super influencers rise above the mass: Not all consumer influencers are equal. A new breed of “super influencers” has been created by the tools of the social media revolution.’

So this UM study tells us consumers are using their voice and listening to each other, they trust each other more than traditional messaging and there are people out there who exert higher levels of influence over their peers – No wonder Ian has been smiling all week.

The full Universal McCann study ‘When did we all start trusting strangers? How the internet turned us all into influencers’ can be downloaded from below (caution – 16mb!)

Download mccann_online_wom_study_sept_08.pdf

Dellarocas, Zhang and Awad have recently completed a research paper (buy it here ) that looks at the correlation between the WoM that a new film gets and it’s eventual Box Office takings.

Guess What … the amount of recommendations was a strong predictor of success.
It gets even more accurate when you factor in not just volume, but tone, diversity of recommenders.

Turns out the same dynamic that  drives this, also works for TV shows.  Which is driving TV studios in the US to look for ways to tap into the power of personal recommendation for the launch of their new mega shows.

Following from the BBC’s success from leaking the 1st episode of Dr Who all those years ago, those behind (Fox & NBC) shows like Knight Rider, Lipstick Jungle, Chuck, Life and 30 Rock and all going to be “leaking” new series buy showing them first on-line. Where they can easily tap into the early adopting, recommendation spreading influencers.

Online premieres may be relatively new but they borrow from the time tested practice of advance screenings. In the movie industry, for example, marketers often release smaller films in “limited release” to build word of mouth interest and fuel "viral marketing." Later, as buzz develops and audience interest rises, the display footprint expands to more theatres.

So, an important ingredient for the successful launch of a new title/film is to get enough positive WoM from a diverse enough group of influencers