NETWORKING

Your Networks Structure

Matters More than Its Size
by Kelsey Libert
FEBRUARY 23, 2016

A recent study by Schlesinger Associates for Augure found that 75% of marketers consider nding
the right inuencers the most challenging aspect of an inuencer marketing strategy. Perhaps
thats due to a misguided approach in which the size of someones following is treated as the
primary benchmark of their inuence.

New research shows that you only need handful of inuencers to give the impression that
everyone is talking about your brand.

Researchers at the University of Southern California recently uncovered the majority illusion, a
paradox within social networks that makes some ideas, behaviors, or attributes appear
widespread even when they are not. Since we cant keep an eye on what the entire world is up to,
were limited to witnessing what our social network says and does. At times, well-connected
members within our network can skew our perception of how common an idea or behavior
actually is.

When it looks like an idea or action is much more popular than it is, it greatly increases the
likelihood that others will adopt it too. In other words, the majority illusion may be a driving
force behind why something eventually becomes truly popular. For example, one of the studys
researchers, Kristina Lerman, believes the majority illusion was a factor in the Arab Spring
gaining momentum and the shift in public opinion toward same-sex marriage.

And yet under insidious applications, the majority illusion can even cause people to adopt false
beliefs or extreme viewpoints without realizing they are rare, which helps explain how fringe
political and ideological groups may develop.

Beyond explaining why uncommon beliefs can appear far more popular than they actually are,
the majority illusion also explains something we already know inuence depends heavily on
having the right connections. But in addition to being well-connected, an individuals location
within a network plays a role in their potential to create the majority illusion.

In the diagram above, the red nodes are active, meaning they all share an attribute, such as
being a redhead or following a vegan diet. The network structures in both gures are identical,
yet the placement of active members diers. Figure A illustrates how a few well-connected
people can cause the majority illusion; a large fraction of the network will observe the active
attribute in their neighbors, which can give the impression that a lot more people are redheads or
vegans than is globally true. While in gure B, the group members wont perceive an abundance
of redheads and vegans since they arent observing as many people intheir network with those
attributes.

Visualizing the hierarchical relationships within a social network further demonstrates how the
structure of the network, and the specic location and connections of certain inuencers, makes
some people more inuential than others, even when they have fewer followers.

If that sounds a bit complicated, stay with me.

My team at Fractl created the below inuencer marketing network graph using 77 mid-level
Twitter inuencers (between 30,000 and 500,000 followers) across eight dierent verticals to
illustrate strategic positioning among inuential accounts.

InfluencerNetworksAmongTwitterUsers
Userswithatleast30,000followersandtheinfluencerstheyfollowinturn.
Moreaboutthisvisualization

Legend:
user
followinganotheruser
communitycluster

Search:
SearchbyTwitterUsername

GroupSelector:
SelectGroup
Seventyseveninfluentialuserswereselectedtorepresentavarietyofonlinecommunitiesbasedonasetof
criteriathatsignaledmidlevelinfluence:afollowinggreaterthan30Kbutlessthan500K,afollowerto
followingratioofatleast1:1,andalistsperfollowersrateofatleast6.5(thenumberoftimestheyhavebeen
addedtoaTwitterlistperthousandoffollowers).Those77have19millionfollowersamongthem.Shownhere
are8,670ofthose19millionwhohaveatleast30,000followersandarefollowingbetweentwoand10ofthe
In the graph, each node represents an inuencer and the lines between nodes represent a
relationship. The bigger the node, the more connections that inuencer has within this particular
network it does not mean they have the largest following overall. Each color represents which
vertical an inuencer belongs to. As you can see, the larger nodes often have connections across
multiple verticals. Again, these are not necessarily the most popular inuencers with the
largest following.

As our graph shows, being well-connected or strategically positioned within a social network may
impact ones ability to inuence others more than the size of ones following. Thats not to say
that size never matters individuals with bigger networks do tend to more inuential. But the
structure of those connections matters, too. So marketers should focus on two other factors that
measure inuence in a social network: betweenness centrality and closeness.

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Betweenness centrality is a persons location

Strategies for growth in a connected world.

between dierent sections of a network. A high

betweenness centrality signals a strategic
position. For example, consider an executive

with connections throughout several industries, as opposed to a leader who is only wellconnected within his own industry.

Closeness is the average number of degrees between an individual and other members of the
network; someone with one degree of separation, or more closeness, will probably wield greater
inuence (consider the ease of getting a favor from a friend as opposed to a friend of a friends
mothers cousin).

Inuencers who have a high betweenness centrality are ideal for reaching a wide audience, while
inuencers within a tightly-knit niche group are best suited for action-driven goals.

Want to quickly get the word out about a new product? Get a handful of inuencers with high
betweenness centrality talking about it. Potential reach is greatest among these strategicallypositioned inuencers since their connections across various networks help them eciently
disseminate information. Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) and Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) are two
great examples from our network graph with high betweenness centrality (8.71 and 7.72,
respectively). Notice how their connections span across the entire graph.

Want to get people to take action, such as signing up for a free trial or sharing a video? The
researchers found the majority illusion is most likely to occur when group members with a low
number of connections have a tendency to connect with individuals with a lot of connections. In
networks where members have a low degree of connections, exposure to outside ideas and
opinions is limited, making them more easily inuenced. The high-degree members of these
close-knit networks, who well call niche leaders, have great inuence within their network,
making them an ideal partner for accomplishing conversion-driven goals.

In the graph, youll notice isolated groups on the edges of the graph. The example below shows
one such group, a cluster of individuals in the public health community that with few
connections to the other verticals in the network. Most of this cluster is connected to one or two
larger nodes which are probably niche leaders.

As Malcolm Gladwell said in The Tipping Point,

There are exceptional people out there capable
of starting epidemics. All you have to do is nd
them. Fortunately, you dont need to build a
network graph model to locate inuencers with
the highest potential to create the majority
illusion.

To nd inuencers with high betweenness

centrality, look for people followed by other
inuencers who also have followers across many
verticals. It helps if their niche naturally overlaps
with other niches (such as a travel journalist
followed by business professionals in a range of industries). To nd niche leaders, look for people
with narrowly-focused interests whose followers are similar to them but have a low number of
followers.

Lastly, timing is a key factor for creating the majority illusion. Coordinate a handful of inuencers
to push your message, product, or content around the same time to give the impression that
everyone is talking about your brand.

Kelsey Libert is a viral marketing speaker and Director of Promotions at Fractl, you can connect with her at
@KelseyLibert.

This article is about NETWORKING

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Related Topics: INFORMAL LEADERSHIP |

MARKETING |

SOCIAL PLATFORMS

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4 COMMENTS

Matt Hixson

7 months ago

This is simply not how inuence works. The metrics you point out come from graph theory and network science
where were developed when the US was laying out the road network in the US. The key underlying principle for
these is the physical location between points. This is true when you are dealing with the relative location of two
cities or people within that city but it doesn't work in the virtual world. The real problem that we have with our
understanding of online social networks is that we are taking science that was never designed for these problems
and applying them here.
The other issue here is that you are assuming that connections are the only way that people get and consume
information. Many people nd information by following a hashtag or topic or search not through their
connections. Social TV primarily works this way. The reason that so many marketers are frustrated with nding
inuencers is the fact that this doesn't work and a form of this has been tried for years.
The next natural question is what does work? That is something that my cofounder has spent 10 years of his life
addressing. His research will start to be published this year and will challenge these assumptions with novel
research that will generate massive changes in this industry over time.
One other thing - Malcom Gladwell is a ction writer. His work is not supported by research - it is just observation
yet it is taken as science.
00

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