Jenni Beatty put me on to this study in a recent post. Fascinating.
In summary, friendship influence caused the following changes to purchasing behaviour in user categories that were based on social connectedness and activity in the online Korean community CyWorld;
- High status (large number of in and out friendship links) were 12% of users and their purchases dropped 14% as others emulated their purchases. Their social, non-purchase behaviour increased as they appeared to try and make themselves uber-kool again.
- Medium status were 40% of the users and their purchases increased 5% as they 'kept up with the Joneses' in the high status group
- Low status (small number of links, low activity rates) at 48% of the users were unaffected by other users' purchases - felt no social pressure to keep up with anyone.
As 'influentials' marketers this is useful. It means our planning should take into account the fact that our word of mouth advocacy targets - the high status power users - will stop buying our cool product at about the same time Duncan Watts' "critical mass of easily influenced individuals" start.
Is a 5% increase in the purchases of the 40% of the population that are followers enough to offset the 14% drop in the 12% of influentials... mmmm?
The users in the study were buying virtual decorations for their minihompys (home pages); wall paper, furniture, music etc.
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