In Malcolm Gladwell’s seminal work The Tipping Point (which all marketers should read) he describes the three types of people capable of causing a “social epidemic”.
Starting with the cautionary note that, “The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social skills” he then proceeds to describe these elusive and hugely valuable persons as Salesmen, Mavens and Connectors.
Salesmen are those who use charisma and negotiation to influence others within their social group and Mavens are those who seed new ideas and trends by virtue of their obsessive gathering of information and, consequently, inherently trustworthy opinion. Connectors on the other hand, aside from being the group we’re most interested in, are those “link us up with the world … people with a special gift for bringing the world together”, who by virtue of their wide social networks (often bridging many group types) have the power to carry new ideas, innovations or products to such a great audience that they can, in short order, engineer a social epidemic – “the level at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable.”
Such people are, to marketers, more valuable than diamonds. They have the ability to change a product from a small run idea into a global phenomenon – and whilst not as rare as diamonds are still difficult to target. So what’s your best chance of finding these connectors?
Your first and most important step is to identify your target audience. No targeting will work properly without a clear and defined idea of who your core users should be. This process of identification is very much the unglamorous, yet totally essential, part of marketing that very few outside the industry see. It is also, most of the uninitiated will be surprised to learn, an aspect of our trade that experiential marketing is exceptionally good at executing.
This is because EM works from a basic standpoint that embraces the individual and face to face communication – an idea somewhat at odds with the mass media disciplines so popular for most of the last century! With this integral focus on the consumer as a unique entity experiential marketing is perfectly set up for extensive and exhaustive research through ground-level campaigning. To oversimplify it slightly – our initial instinct as experiential marketers is to get out and ask people about things…not spend an age thinking up a questionnaire and then mailing to a pre-selected focus group.
This attitude in turn leads to the gathering of exceptional data – and it is this that is absolutely vital for any connector search.
Once the target market is correctly identified there is a new task; researching their likely locations. In many ways this is the key to the whole deal.
Here it is not just pure research that you need but also substantial social knowledge and the ability to think laterally to great effect. Once again these are skills found in abundance in experiential marketers.
At this point it is possible to proceed in two different directions (and the prudent will follow both courses simultaneously). Firstly narrow-focus events aimed at your target market should be held. By narrow-focus we mean very, very tightly targeted and, therefore, likely to attract only (or certainly a majority of) the more aware and socially involved members of your target market. This is often where connectors are to be found.
Secondly, connectors should be sought out on their own turf too. If your target market is young and active start nightclubs should be visited and those who clearly know many people should be sought out (they aren’t difficult to spot), if your market is sporty it’s best to start covering leisure centres, parks, football pitches, Sunday League football clubs and so on. Clubs of varying sorts are always good places to seek out socially active and popular members of your target audience.
A crucial step that should never be missed out at this point is the canvassing of peer groups in the social situations you have engineered or stepped into. By talking to people about who they think is the most socially active person in their group and then asking that person what they in turn think, you will soon start to build up a very accurate of image of just who does the moving a shaking in any given situation (this tactic has most famously been used in the promotion of a games console where school children were asked who the coolest kid they knew was, these named children were then sought out and asked the same question and so on until eventually children were found who answered “me”. These “alpha pups” were the brand connectors).
Once again it is throughout these latter stages that experiential marketing leads the way in finding brand connectors – EM’s extensive use of buzz events and socially targeted activities as a staple of its operations lends itself exceptionally to the pursuit of brand connectors through these non-traditional means.
This activity should result in a small selection of hand picked people who you have identified as your likely connectors. These subjects should then be wooed extensively – provided with free products, engaged extensively about your brand…essentially pampered and rewarded. They will then start talking about their experience of your brand to their many, many friends. And so the social epidemic begins.