Ever wonder how many “influentials” exist in the world, and how they exert their influence? Apparently the answer is approximately 20 million adult consumers worldwide. They use several offline and online channels to exert influence across their larger-than-normal personal networks in a multitude of product categories on any given day. This, according to “Global Multipliers”, a study released earlier this year by The New York Times, Thomson Reuters and MediaVest.
Global multipliers is the term they use for uber-influential consumers. A few of the findings:
- In a typical week, Multipliers communicate with about 50 percent more people than average consumers, both in person and online.
- Global Multipliers reside in all countries around the world, albeit in numbers relative to the population and local economic development. For example, the study estimates that while there are 2.6 million Global Multipliers in the United States, there are some 242,000 Multipliers in Argentina.
- Global Multipliers are more likely than average consumers to spread both positive (89% vs. 74%) and negative (51% vs. 43%) reviews of products.
- Global Multipliers are more social than average consumers. In a typical day, Global Multipliers communicate with 50% more people both online (36 people vs. 24) and offline (29 vs. 20).
- They are also more likely to use the Internet to share their opinions quickly and on a large scale by forwarding links (68% vs. 49% of average consumers), social networking (64% vs. 54%), posting user reviews (50% vs. 30%) and blogging (46% vs. 34%). Global Multipliers send and receive approximately 1.6 billion e-mails and 1.2 billion text messages every day and post 331 million blog entries every week.
A white paper on the study is available for the asking. Contact The New York Times. The study was based on research of 4,000 individuals consisting of an online survey and one-on-one interviews conducted in 10 cities around the world.
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Tom Smith’s guest post at Mashable makes the point that we now trust the opinions of strangers as much as we trust our close friends, thanks to social media. He’s highlighting findings from the Universal McCann study, “When did we start trusting strangers”. Don’t let yourself get lulled into thinking this phenomenon is taking place only in consumer markets. Social media is also changing the way that businesses source trusted opinions on products and services.
Social media is transforming B2B decision-maker ecosystems in two fundamental ways. The most notable, according to Influencer50 research, is that more categories of advisors are exerting more influence during B2B purchase decisions. Social media is helping make many types of “hidden” advisors more visible, more accessible, more informed.
Another change is the appearance of new types of influencers. Examples include niche consultants, procurement groups, and expert communities.
The bottomline is that social media is changing the way we slice the B2B influence pie, just as it is changing influence in consumer markets.
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