Archives for March 2011

Continuing  the OMMA Social post, How Do Marketers Influence the Influencers? A case study at OMMA Social, let’s at the different characteristics that define influencer segments and how brands can engage them.

Source: Social Influencer segmentation study for the mom market, presented by Social Media and Communications Consultant Dina Freeman and Joshua Grossnickle, VP of Consumer Insights and Analytics, at Johnson & Johnson-owned BabyCenter.

Overall share of influence on social media

• Field experts: 8% of social moms and have a 33% share of influence
• Lifecasters: 8% of social moms and 34% percent of the influence
• Pros: 2% of social moms and have an 11% share of influence overall — most influential as individuals
• Butterflies represent 16% of community but wield 7% infleunce

Characteristics of Field Experts: Stay-at-home moms focused on parenting

• Lots of posts but few direct friendships
• Experienced stay-at-home mom
• On BabyCenter or in groups, she shares robust info
• Has faced specific challenge that turned her into a passionista: twins, problems breastfeeding
• Writes really great product reviews
• This group contributes 200 posts a week
• Field experts’ content attracts 950,000 page views a month — very influential

Brands: Utilize and find the best “Field Experts”

• Engage with her based on her expertise
• Send samples
• Don’t just blanket the blogosphere with product samples
• Partner with sites that let her share her wisdom
• Understand she’s compelled to make life easier for the next person

Lifecaster characteristics: Millennial moms sharing their lives

• Driven to share
• Taking a year or two off to raise kids
• Posting about broad range of topics
• Lighter sharing than the field experts group
• She’s a maven, loves to connect people, lives life publicly on Facebook
• 500 to 1,000 followers, lots of friends and comments
• Everything funny and light

Brands: Let “Lifecasters” post deals

• Ebagage with them lighter: user-generated content, photos, contests
• IKEA: upload room shot, the first person to tag it, gets it
• Baby milestones: desire & guilt to recognize milestones, connect via Facebook and e-mail

Pros’ characteristics: Bloggers who earn a living from social

• Gen X Mom:  Self-employed
• Engaging and entertaining tone on her blog
• Does extensive research before posting anything
• 50% have been given products or paid to post
• 10,000 followers on blog, earned right to call themselves mini publishers
• They poll followers to see what to write about.
• Respect their editorial voice and loyalty to their audience

Brands: “Pros” engagement example

Verizon sponsored 5 of women in a “Bucket List” campaign. Each woman wrote about her experiences doing things she’d like to do before she dies. Verizon wrapped branding around it these stories.

Butterflies too busy to be social, for now

The fourth category was much smaller and less influential. Most women in this category are expecting their first child, working full-time, and have less history in the community. She’s very social and in many cases will morph into another influencer category as she has more life experiences to share with the BabyCenter community.

Charts & more highlights available on BabyCenter.com

When it comes to studying the marketing landscape, many questions have to be asked:  How, why, who, and what is driving influence in the market?

Social Media and Communications Consultant Dina Freeman and Joshua Grossnickle, VP of Consumer Insights and Analytics, at Johnson & Johnson-owned BabyCenter present the findings of a Social Influencer segmentation study for the mom market.  This study helps answer some of the questions regarding the driving influences in the mom market.

This case study looks what heavy contributors do in the social networking scene:  Be it giving advice and recommendations, simply chatting, or being a key resource on specific topics.

Johnson & Johnson’s social platform for Moms

• 78% of mothers and expectant mothers use BabyCenter
• Biggest mothering focus group in the world
• That is 19 millions moms around the world

Social media archtype insights

• Eco mom
• Media mom
• Doctor mom
• Social mom

Moms using social media increased 591%

• Find solutions to everyday problems
• Product recommendations, such as when registering for baby shower gifts
• Find people going through the same thing

Who are the influencers?

• Sift through the sea of comments to understand the Mom market; separate the signal from the noise
• From social media to social marketing, critical influencers: 80-20 rule applies
• Influence defined by network size, how many people talking to versus number of comments.

Influencer survey results

Of 500,000 BabyCenter registrants, 2,300 respondents were surveyed on the BabyCenter site, showing 45 behavioral characteristics.

Where do mothers find information

• Blog posts
• User-generated content
• BabyCenter
• Blog
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Friends
• Two-way relationship, connection
• BabyCenter friends, Facebook friends
• Network
• Field experts, lifecasters, pros
• Butterflies (see definition in next section)

Where do mothers go for?

Engage the right influencers in the right places aligned with where people can boost your marketing objectives

• Socializing and entertainment: Facebook and Twitter
• Learning and deciding: Useful recommendations and product recommendations: BabyCenter, Mom blogs
• BabyCenter comments tend to be rich, useful
• Facebook posts lean toward snarky answers

Who makes up the influencers?

• 8% of audience are field experts: list of things to bring on plane, done research, stay-at-home moms, want to share
• 8% Lifecasters: lots of the friends and posts, mellennial Moms, some relevant, some noise
• 16% Butterflies: affluent, time compressed, low volume of posts, young professionals who put the social into social media, often just beginning, first pregnancy, may migrate to another segment
• 66% Audience: Low volume of posts

Overall share of influence

• Field experts: 33%
• Lifecasters: 34%
• Pros: 11% are the most influential as individuals; although a smaller population, still most influential
• Butterflies: 16%

Bottom line

This survey shows where mothers go for  guidance and what type of people mothers look for as influencers in the field.  The more influential sources are the ones who specialize and are experts in an area, the pros.  To be influential in the market, one must devote a lot of time toward communicating in their specialized/defined field.

To see specific qualities each type of social influencer has, check out our upcoming blog post “What characteristics do influencers have? A case study at OMMA Social, part 2”