Who Are Marketing “Mass Influencers” in Social Media?

Within the Facebook network of 500 million users is a key audience known as “mass influencers”. Forester Research recently released a study regarding online peer influence and the role of “Mass Influencers”.  Estimated at over 29 million, this elite group has the power to influence the opinions and attitudes of millions more  people. The profile of these thought leaders is important to understand since they are in a position to influence the opinions on companies, brands, and institutions. According to the new Peer Influence Analysis, Forrester says:

"Social media has created a new type of influencer — one defined not merely by number of friends or frequency of dialogue but by both," said Forrester Research Senior Analyst Augie Ray. "Brands can succeed with Mass Influencers by creating programs that energize large numbers of these enthusiasts. The challenge is that marketers do not and cannot know the identity of the vast majority of their Mass Influencers. Thus, they need ways to reach them en masse, not individually."

Forrester divides the Mass Influencers into two groups: Mass Connectors and Mass Mavens (3.7% of the online population falls into both categories). Mass Connectors have a lot of online friends—537 total across all networks, Forrester reports. Mass Mavens are people with a high level of expertise in their field. While Mass Mavens are driven to collect and share facts and opinions, Mass Connectors are driven to know others. Naturally, both frequently post about products and services.

The average age of Mass Influencers is between 32 and 38 years old (younger than the average online American, at 44). Possibly because they can afford to experience (and thus compare) more things, Mass Influencers average household income ranges from $89,000 to $98,000, higher than the U.S. online average of $79,000. The study also found that 62% of influential impressions from Mass Influencers took place on Facebook, with only 10% taking place on Twitter.

This makes Facebook an extremely important place for companies and institutions to engage and monitor if they want to understand and influence the prevailing opinions of others. 

But the power of influencers is based on quality not quantity. Should you judge an individuals “influencer level” based on number of “friends”? Not necessarily so.

According to Facebook:

• There are more than 500 million active users
• Up to 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• But the average user has only 130 friends
• People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

And, 80% of Influencers come from only 16% of users!

Look at some of these stats:

So who would I pick as a Marketing “Mass Influencer” in social media today? My 2 favorite are:

Guy Kawasaki
Guy has 51,000+ friends, and describes himself as "Guy Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an “online magazine rack” of popular topics on the web. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College

Seth Godin
Seth has over 100,000 "Likes" but his Facebook page is a repost from his blog which has over 2,500 posts!
Seth describes himself as "written thirteen books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. American Way Magazine calls him, "America's Greatest Marketer," and his blog is perhaps the most popular in the world written by a single individual. His latest book, Poke The Box is a call to action about the initiative you're taking - in your job or in your life, and Seth once again breaks the traditional publishing model by releasing it through The Domino Project.

Who would make your list?