Former Forrester analyst and social media visionary Charlene Li has added fuel to a topical flame dubbed the "Personal CPM." She hypothesizes that marketers will bid for access to personal social
networking profiles with greater reach and influence among their peers. Inherent in this discussion is whether these individuals share in the windfall of this influence. I am participating in a panel
on the topic this afternoon at OMMA Social in San Francisco so I thought I'd put a few ideas out there and see if I can crowdsource an analysis.
First, this is not a new topic, it has been
tackled by other industries and wrestled by other thought leaders under different monikers and in alternate contexts. Social Media shares DNA with sister discipline Word of Mouth. As a former board
member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and student of the burgeoning Social Media industry, I've witnessed both industries obsess over "influencer methodologies."
From this
debate, messiahs have been created, definitive tomes written and disciples deputized. Two dominant "religions" seem to have risen from the fertile influencer landscape even before the context of
social networking evolved the conversation: The Influentials vs. The Everyday Evangelists. Malcolm Gladwell's breakthrough work The Tipping Point was the Old Testament to Charlene Li's New
Testament Groundswell.
advertisement
advertisement
His research located those "maven" consumers, the cool kids, whose fashion, music and consumerism were the seeds of all trends. Tipping Point gave rise to a
legion of "cool hunters" that splintered into a more scientific approach outlined in Keller/Berry's book The Influentials, with a descriptor that says it all: "One American in ten tells the
other nine how to vote, where to eat and what to buy."
The Everyday Evangelists argue that the search for alphas, mavens, sneezers and the like is a fool's pursuit. Companies like Bzz Agent
have led this splinter faction, assembling legions of hand-raising, would-be evangelists to try stuff, talk about the stuff that they like, and report on the conversations.
They make no claims
that these people are screened for influence, size of network, or persuasive personality traits. They have, however, placed a line in the sand around the idea of a CPC, or cost per conversation. Based
on some nifty math and established media metrics, they've established a de facto standard of $.50 per conversation. In a performance-based world, would you give two quarters for a conversation about
your brand?
These models, of course, were conceived BF (Before Facebook). If Google established the common practices and pricing models of performance advertising, I argue Facebook will be the
battleground of the Personal CPM holy war. On one side, marketers await, anxious to "buy" social influence at the human being and personal profile level. Lining up against them will be the privacy
zealots and marketing skeptics, defending the sanctity of our profiles and the actions within our social networks. Somewhere in the middle will be consumers with a growing sense of their marketability
and looking for a little something, you know, for effort.
Mark Zuckerberg once called Facebook "Word of Mouth on Steroids" and his Beacon advertising program planted the philosophical seeds
for the idea of tapping purchase influence within social networks. Beacon may have lost the battle, but Facebook will win the war. Out of the ashes have risen three new weapons of mass influence:
Social Ads, Pages and Connect.
How can advertisers tap into the social graph and "Personal CPM" to have greater impact in social networks? Should they? I'd love any thoughts.