Digital Marketing. Annmarie Hanlon
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substitution, to analyse the types of technology changes that you have witnessed in your lifetime.
2 What were the greatest changes?
3 Why was this?
4 Are there any difficulties ensuring all four quadrants in the framework are included?
How do we learn about new products or what influences our judgement to adopt new technology? In 1944 sociologists and behavioural scientists Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet conducted a study to see how mass media affected voters in the US election campaign for President Franklin Roosevelt (Lazarsfeld et al., 1944). The surprising result of their research was that it was influencers, or opinion leaders, not the media, that had the greatest impact. Influencers, who received the messages from what at that time were mainly traditional newspapers and radio, shared this with their ‘followers’.
1.2.2 Two-step Flow Theory of Communications
The research was further developed by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz who named this the two-step flow theory of communications (Lazarsfeld and Katz, 1955) where the media communication was received by the influencer and then passed to other individuals.
There were limitations to the two-step flow theory of communications. It was based on one piece of research, which meant that it was not necessarily generalisable to other situations. It may be that this was a set of exceptional circumstances that could not be repeated. Another issue is that it was a simplistic binary model which assumed that this is how mass media worked. As a result of these limitations, the model was extended from two to multiple steps (the multi-step flow), which was developed by John Robinson (Robinson, 1976) and was used as a basis for other communications theories.
A key aspect of the digital environment is that we have moved from two-step or multi-step to a totally different understanding of communications with newer models emerging, such as media richness (see Chapter 11, Social Media Management) and uses and gratifications theory (see Chapter 13, Digital Marketing Metrics, Analytics and Reporting), although at the same time some much older theories, such as diffusion of innovations, have remained valid.
Key Term Diffusion of Innovations
In 1962 Everett Rogers published a book entitled Diffusion of Innovations, which was based on the two-step flow of communications and explored the conditions that increased or decreased the likelihood of product adoption.
In this model, based on how a product gains momentum and spreads or diffuses through a group, Rogers proposed five adopter categories – (1) innovators; (2) early adopters; (3) early majority; (4) late majority; (5) laggards – which considered the time at which an individual adopted an innovation.
The five adopter categories were ideal types fabricated to make comparisons, and Rogers recognised these generalisations. There was criticism of the terminology – no one wanted to be considered as a laggard, which was perceived as being a negative label. Table 1.1 shows some of the general characteristics identified, which I have adapted to apply to digital marketing.
The one notable category is that early majority were seen as opinion leaders, an idea which was identified in the two-step flow theory of communications and which reverberates within digital marketing as organisations strive to seek those to influence product adoption.
Rogers generalised that opinion leaders (see Key Term) were more cosmopolitan than their followers. One prescient observation from Rogers was that opinion leaders needed access to mass media and had to be accessible. Think about those opinion leaders with mass followers on YouTube and Twitter – they meet these conditions.
Table 1.1
Key Terms Opinion Formers and Opinion Leaders
Opinion formers are formal experts. They work in this area, may be qualified or professionally trained and have significant specialist knowledge about the subject.
Opinion leaders are informal experts who carry out research and whose knowledge is valued amongst family, friends and followers.
As Lazarsfeld, Berelson, Gaudet, Katz and Rogers observed, the opinion leaders, or influencers, are key to spreading the word about new products and services. These influencers are generating an income from their online following and, according to Forbes.com (O'Connor, 2017), a paid-for social media post can be very lucrative, with fees of $25,000 paid to a top yoga teacher (e.g. Rachel Brathen) for their endorsement or $3000 to $5000 paid to a recognised fitness instructor.
The fees can be higher for specific social media platforms where they have greater numbers of followers and fans, for example:
$300,000 for a YouTuber with 7 million subscribers or more
$200,000 for Facebook
$150,000 for Instagram
In our digital age, as celebrities charge more and more to promote brands, brands are turning to alternatives. We have seen the development of a new type of opinion leader, the micro-influencer. Forbes.com suggested that ‘an Instagram user with 100,000 followers can command $5,000 for a post made in partnership with a company or brand’ (O'Connor, 2017, p. 1).
Key Term Micro-Influencers
Carol Scott, whilst director of marketing at a specialist influencer company, described micro-influencers as ‘everyday individuals with small, dedicated followings online’ (Scott, 2016, p. 1).
Writing in Adweek, Emma Bazilian provided a profile of a female millennial micro-influencer: typically aged between 18 and 34 with 2000 to 25,000 Instagram followers, attracting an engagement rate of 3% and higher. Their key topics were fashion, beauty, travel or fitness (Bazilian, 2017). Bazilian added that the brand marketers could employ these micro-influencers to promote and increase product and brand awareness and specifically to:
Seed products
Promote sample products
Share unbox videos
Create ‘how to’ videos
Develop ‘day in the life of’
Share trending content
Attend events
Promote discount codes
Host product competitions
Smartphone Sixty Seconds® – Evaluate Your Influencers
On your mobile phone search for your favourite influencers. You might follow them on Instagram but they may have additional social media profiles too.
Find all their online profiles.
Add up the number of followers on each.
Find a sponsored post and share with classmates.
Try to figure out what they were paid for the post and what impact you think it had.
Case Example 1.1 Eltoria Influencer Marketing
Eltoria is the alter ego of Simone\ Partner and, as an influencer, Simone is not an ‘IT girl’ or someone who has a famous dad. She had a very different starting point and is a law graduate from the University of Reading, where she gained a 2:1 degree.
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