Metric description and application:

Marketers and business communicators have been targeting so-called “influencers” or “influentials” for decades. It is a strategy born of experience and intuition—a sense that people are influenced by other people, and that some people wield greater influence than others.  But there is wide variation in what people mean by influencers or influencer marketing. The situation begs for a common language and conceptual framework to aid practitioners.

 

WOMMA has developed the following definitions with an eye for academic rigor but also practitioner utility. With this in mind consider that there are 7 billion+ people on the earth. While anyone can exert influence in some manner on others it is rarely practical for brands to focus on reaching everyone, and hence there is an interest in aiming communications toward those people who have disproportionate influence in the marketplace.

 

Status:

Standards approved June 2013

Open for comment until Dec 31, 2013

Adopted and published Jan 2014

 

Version, date, and author(s):

Version 1.0

Published Juen 2013

Authors: Phillip Sheldrake, Brad Fay, Neil Beam, and the Standards Committee for WOMMA 

 

Standards or guidelines:

Standards

 

Metric type:

Outcome depending on the program’s objectives

 

Detailed description:

This is the actual standard, and must include full description of how to use this metrics

 

-“Influence” is the ability to cause or contribute to a change in opinion or behavior.

 

-Where the initial actor is a “key influencer” who is: A person (or group of people) who possess greater than average potential to influence due to attributes such as frequency of communication, personal persuasiveness, or size of and centrality to a social network, among others.

 

-“Key Influencers” interact with others and those they influence are “Influencees:” A person or group of people who change their opinion or behavior as the result of exposure to new information.

 

-Therefore Influencer Marketing is: The act of a marketer or communicator engaging with key influencers to act upon influencees in pursuit of a business objective.

 

-Research shows a marketer is most effective when focusing resources on Key Influencers with the highest propensity to influence a population of Influencees who have the highest propensity to be influenced.