US social media mass influencers responsible for 500bn brand impressions
Forrester has released new US research looking at what it calls mass influencers – social influencers who generate the majority of impressions and opinions about a company’s products and services.
It estimates that in 2009, mass influencers were responsible for more than 500 billion consumer-generated brand impressions.
In the new report Peer Influence Analysis, Forrester estimates that these Mass Influencers, who make up just 16% of all online Americans, are responsible for 80% of the brand impressions in online social settings.
Augie Ray, Forrester Research senior analyst, said: “Social media has created a new type of influencer – one defined not merely by number of friends or frequency of dialogue but by both.
“Brands can succeed with Mass Influencers by creating programs that energize large numbers of these enthusiasts.
“The challenge is that marketers do not and cannot know the identity of the vast majority of their Mass Influencers. Thus, they need ways to reach them en masse, not individually.”
Insight reported yesterday that, according to a new forecast from eMarketer, there will be 26 million US adult Twitter users in 2010, up 44.4% on 2009.
It also forecasts that by 2012 nearly one-fifth of web users, or 36 million people, will be on the micro-blogging service.
Elsewhere, The Nielsen Company revealed that web users across 10 countries spent an average of five and a half hours on social networks in February 2010, up more than two hours from the same period last year.
Users in the UK spent an average of five hours and 50 minutes on social networks during the month.