For most word-of-mouth marketers, it should be fairly clear that the most influential word-of-mouth effects arise when people tied together by strong emotional bonds share and spread a message. You will naturally listen more to recommendations and opinions from your family and close friends than from people you do not know. This insight was strengthened by a Harvard Business Review study showing that out of the famous “Six degrees of separation”, only the first three degrees of social connectedness actually have impact on people’s behaviour and opinions:

“… a person’s influence progressively diminishes as the degrees of separation increase. For example, the risk for smoking in a person connected to a smoker (that is, at one degree of separation) is 61% higher, on average, than would be expected as a result of chance. It is 29% higher if the friends of that person’s friends smoke, and 11% higher if the friends of the person’s friends’ friends smoke. By the fourth degree of separation there is no longer an increase in risk.”

So, this shows that the closer a person are to you, the stronger influence that person has on you. However, what’s really interesting is that beyond that point of truly close relationships, there seems to be a gap or a grey area where there is less influence – followed by increased influence again on “the other side” of that grey area. The grey area I am referring to holds the people you know well but don’t have truly close emotional ties with. That guy you went to school with and you now meet from time to time through common friends but that you never really hang out with, would qualify as such a “grey area connection”. Beyond the grey area, you have people you do not know as well, and they may actually be more influential than your grey area connections. I recently found a post over at PsyBlog that made me think that this may be the case. PsyBlog lists a number of studies showing that the better you get to know people, the less you seem to like them.

“…As this study shows, on the vast majority of occasions the less we know about someone the more we are inclined to like them. It’s like the fake student in Moreland and Beach’s study, ambiguity allows us to imagine that other people share our world-view, our personality traits or our sense of humour. Unfortunately as soon as we start to find out more about them, we’re likely to find out how different they are to ourselves and, as a result, to dislike them.”

It is a common human trait to be interested in and attracted to making new connections with other people. When you come in contact with a new person you may like them for whatever reason, such as their humour, intelligence, expertise or good looks – and mostly you like people who are a lot like you. But, as you get to know them better, you become aware of traits that you do not share with them, and from there it goes downhill and you like them less.

With this insight in mind, it seems pretty clear why some bloggers, Twitter profiles and other online influentials can have such great impact on the world around them. It is simply because they manage to build strong relationships with their followers without letting their followers get to know them too well. I, for one, actively follow Brian Solis, Jeremiah Owyang and other social media/tech sources – and I really like them. Maybe that’s only because I don’t really know them… and if I did, maybe I would not be so inclined to listen to what they write, blog, tweet and talk about?

Grafiken nedan visar hur externa roller kan och bör utnyttjas i kommunikationsstrategin. Den inre cirkeln, organisationens kärna, är den minst förtroendeingivande delen av en organisation enligt mätningar. Den yttre ringen representerar företagets perifera nätverk, den del av ett varumärke som inger mest förtroende.

Läs hela rapporten av Jeremiah Owyang här: Web Strategist – Blog

Jeremiah Owyang, web-strategist.com, recentliy published one of his matrixs: The Ring of Influence. He argues that one of the major indicators that a comapny is ahead in the social space is loyal and free willing ambassadores that speaks your voice and argue for your causes. Companies must extend their communication strategies to reach beyond the borders of the core organisation and involve company representatives.

The graphic presents how extrenal roles can and schould be used in the communication strategy. The inner circle shows the core of the organisation which according to trust research is the least trusted part of a company. The outer rings are the most trusted and represents the periphery of the organisation.

Read the whole article by Jeremiah Owyang: Web Strategist – Blog

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“[In the Future, The Era of Social Context Will Serve Personalized Content, Media, and Ads to Users based on their Social Networking Information]“