With the rapid rise of the use of social media a new form of marketing has appeared. Rather than marketing people being in control and blasting a message out to customers that are not interested in listening, social influence marketing (SIM) is taking over. This is about consumers marketing to consumers. They influence the decision of other consumers based on their opinions and recommendations. A recent report showed that up to 90% of people trust recommendations based on people they know and what’s even more interesting is that you trust recommendations from people you don’t know up to 60% of the time.

Media spending has mainly focussed on awareness, consideration and purchase. The most effort was put into brand awareness and not so much the consideration phase. Social Influence Marketing (SIM) is where consumers are influenced by other consumers during the consideration phase. Social media is fantastic for awareness but the consideration phase is where you will drive the sales. This part of the purchase funnel is where conversations between consumers based on experiences carry a lot of weight and much more than traditional media.

Marketing people used to live in a world where they just focussed on brand marketing and direct response, things have changed a lot and marketers really need to change with the times quickly or they will find the social media guys will take over their space. Actually, it’s happening already. That marketing degree looks like it’s not as valuable as it used to be.

We’re always interested in a good discussion so comments are welcome.

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