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Chapter 11:
Groups and Social Media
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
When students finish this chapter they should understand why:
1. Other people and groups, especially those that possess social power, influence our decisions.
2. Word-of-mouth communication is the most imporant driver of product choice.
3. Opinion leaders’ recommendations are more influential than others when we decide to buy.
4. Social media changes the way we learn about and select products.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
After reading this chapter, students should understand why:
Other people and groups, especially those that possess social power, influence our decisions.
Much of what we know about products we learn through word-of-mouth (WOM) communication
rather than formal advertising. We tend to exchange product-related information in casual
conversations. Guerrilla marketing strategies try to accelerate the WOM process when they enlist
consumers to help spread the word. Although WOM often is helpful to make consumers aware of
products, it can also hurt companies when damaging product rumors or negative WOM occur.
Word-of-mouth communication is the most important driver of product choice.
Social networking platforms significantly increase our access to others’ opinions about products
and services. Virtual consumption communities unite those who share a common bond—usually
enthusiasm about or knowledge of a specific product or service. Emerging marketing strategies
try to leverage the potential of the Web to spread information from consumer to consumer
extremely quickly. Viral marketing techniques enlist individuals to tout products, services, Web
sites, and so on, to others on behalf of companies. Blogging allows consumers to easily post their
thoughts about products for others to see.
Opinion leaders’ recommendations are more influential than others when we decide to buy.
Opinion leaders who are knowledgeable about a product and whose opinions are highly regarded
tend to influence others’ choices. Specific opinion leaders are somewhat hard to identify, but
marketers who know their general characteristics can try to target them in their media and
promotional strategies. Other influencers include market mavens, who have a general interest in
marketplace activities; and surrogate consumers, who are compensated for their advice about
purchases.
Social media changes the way we learn about and select products.
As Web 2.0 continues to develop, companies and consumers increasingly interact directly. The
wisdom-of-crowds perspective argues that under the right circumstances, groups are smarter than
the smartest people in them. If this is true, it implies that large numbers of consumers can predict
successful products. In a sense, a lot of social networking sites let their members dictate purchase
decisions.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Groups
A. Social identity theory suggests that each of us has several “selves’ that relate
to groups.
1. Social power describes the “capacity to alter the actions of others”
2. Referent power supports the idea that a person will copy behaviors of other
prominent people, such as a celebrity.
3. Information power occurs when we know something others would like to know.
4. Legitimate power is the authority we have in the consumer context.
5. Expert power derives from the knowledge one has about a content area.
6. Reward power is the ability to provide positive reinforcement.
7. Coercive power is the ability to influence someone because of social or physical
intimidation.
B. A reference group is an actual or imaginary individual or group that
significantly influences our evaluation, aspirations, or behaviors.
1. A member reference group consists of people we actually know.
2. An aspirational reference group is a group of those we don’t know, but
admire.
3. An avoidance group is a group that we dislike and avoid buying anything
that might identify us with that group.
C. Conformity is a change in beliefs or actions, or the development of new
norms, or informal rules, that govern behavior.
1. Cultural pressures are a result of the cultural encouragement to conform.
2. Fear of deviance is the belief that a group will apply sanctions to punish
nonconforming behaviors.
3. Commitment is the dedications to a group or value that membership has
in it.
4. Group unanimity, size, and expertise make it harder to resist the demands
of a large number of people.
5. Susceptibility to interpersonal influence refers to an individuals need to
have others think highly of him or her.
6. Environmental cues effects peoples level of conformity.
D. A brand communityis a group of consumers who share a set of social
relationships based on the usage of or interest in a product.
I. Word-of-Mouth Communication
A. Word of Mouth
1. Word of mouth communication is product information that individuals transmit to
other individuals.
2. It is more powerful than advertising.
3. Advertising is more effective at reinforcing existing beliefs than creating new ones.
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: When was the last time you gave someone advice about buying a
product? Describe the situation, the information, and the outcome.
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: When was the last time you received WOM advice to purchase a
product? Was there social conformity pressure? If so, describe the pressure and what eventually
happened.
B. Buzz Building
Guerrilla marketing refers to using promotional strategies that use unconventional means
and venues to push products. The term implies that the marketer ambushes the
unsuspecting recipient.
C. Negative WOM: The Power of Rumors
1. Negative word-of-mouth (WOM) is weighted more heavily than positive WOM.
2. There are three basic themes that came to light in a study of complaint websites:
a. Injustice – consumers talked about the difficulty in contacting the company
b. Identity – posters characterize the company as evil, not just incompetent
c. Agency – individuals try to create a sense of collective identity
3. Serial reproduction is the examination of how content mutates.
a. Sometimes people change content to make them consistent with their preexisting
schemas, a process called assimilation.
b. Sometimes people engage in leveling, where they omit details to simplify the
structure.
c. Sometimes people engage in sharpening, where they exaggerate prominent
details.
***** Use Figure 11.1 Here *****
Discussion Opportunity—Give an illustration of a guerrilla marketing effort you have seen.
Analyze it.
II. Opinion Leadership
A. Opinion Leaders
1. Opinion leaders are people who are frequently able to influence others’ attitudes or
behaviors.
They are technically competent.
They have prescreened, evaluated, and synthesized (in an unbiased way) product
information.
They are socially active and interconnected in their community.
They are similar to the consumer in values and beliefs, a characteristic described
by the term homophily. Then tend to be slightly higher in terms of status and
educational attainment than those they influence do, but not so high as to be in a
different social class.
They are often among the first to buy new products. They often absorb risk
because they purchase products first. They are more credible because of their
hands-on experience.
Discussion Opportunity—Ask students to consider the following: Whom do you know that you
would classify as an opinion leader? In what areas is he/she a leader? Are you an opinion
leader? Under what circumstances and to whom do you perform this role?
B. How influential is an opinion leader?
1. When marketers and social scientists initially developed the concept of the opinion
leader, it was assumed that certain influential people in a community would exert an
overall impact on group members’ attitudes. There is a question today as to whether
there is such a thing as a generalized opinion leader.
2. Opinion leaders tend to be concentrated in their field of interest or expertise. Some
opinion leaders overlap into other fields, but not into all fields.
a. Monomorphic—experts in a limited field.
b. Polymorphic—experts in several fields (but usually concentrated).
3. The original framework is the two-step flow model of influence.
a. A small group of influencers disseminates information because they can modify
the opinions of a large number of other people.
b. The model was updated to recognize that the communication of information was
dependent on people who are easily influenced. These people participate in
two-way dialogue with the opinion leader as part of an influence network.
c. These conversations create information cascades, where the information triggers
a series of interactions.
C. Types of Opinion Leaders
1. Opinion leaders may or may not be purchasers of products they recommend.
2. A consumer category called the market maven has been proposed to describe people
who are actively involved in transmitting marketplace information of all types.
Market mavens are closer to the conception of a general opinion leader.
Discussion Opportunity—Ask students to describe a market maven that they know. What
information do you get from them? How do you think they got the information they transmit?
3. A surrogate consumer is a person who is hired to provide input into purchase
decisions.
a. The surrogate consumer is usually compensated for this involvement.
b. Examples would include interior decorators, stockbrokers, professional shoppers,
or college consultants.
D. How do we find Opinion Leaders?
1. In exploratory studies, researchers identify the profile of a representative opinion
leader and generalize these insights to a larger market.
2. In the self-designating method, researchers ask individual consumers whether they
consider themselves opinion leaders. It is not as reliable as other methods, but it can
easily be applied to a large group of potential opinion leaders.
3. Key informants may be asked to identify opinion leaders.
4. Tracing communication patterns among group members is called the sociometric
method. It examines networks through network analysis, which focuses on
communication in social systems and considers relations among people in a referral
network, including tie strength among them.
5. Tie strength refers to the nature of the bond between people.
a. It can range from strong primary (e.g. spouse) to weak secondary (acquaintance).
b. Although strong ties are important, weak ties are too because they perform a
bridging function between subgroups.
III. The Social Media Revolution
A. Online Social Media and Brand Community
1. Social networks are a set of socially relevant nodes connected by one or more
relations.
Nodes are members in the network.
Members are network units.
Ties or relationships connect network units.
Social networks are sometimes called social graphs, which also may refer to a
diagram of interconnections of units in a network.
Nodes in a network experience interactions (e.g. talking to each other, attending
an event, working together).
Flows (exchanges of resources, information or influence among members of the
network) occur between nodes. Flows go in many directions on multiple
platforms, including emails, text messages, virtual worlds, and face-to-face
meetups - a condition termed media multiplexity.
C. Digital Word-of-mouth
1. 1. Viral marketing occurs when an organization motivates visitors to forward online
content to others. Online communities exhibit the following basic characteristics:
The Megaphone Effect allows consumers to share their views with a large
audience every day.
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: Is there any category of consumer products in which you think
you might be considered an opinion leader?
1. Social games are multiplayer, competitive, goal-oriented activities with defined rules
of engagement and online connectivity among a community of players. We’ll see
more transactional advertising in games. Social games typically include
Leaderboards
Achievement badges
Buddy lists
2. Social games are built on several layers including platform, mode, milieu, and genre.
A game platform refers to the hardware systems on which the game is played.
Mode refers to the way players experience the game world.
Milieu describes the visual nature of the game, such as science fiction, fantasy,
horror, and retro.
The genre of a game refers to the method of play. Popular genres include
simulation, action, and role-playing.
D. Online Opinion Leaders
3. Online opinion leaders, sometimes called power users, are powerful because they can
reach millions of people around the world and directly or indirectly influence their
purchase decisions.
4. Brand specific mentions in social networks are influence impressions.
The 6.2% of social media users that are responsible for 80% of brand mentions
are Mass Connectors.
Mass Connectors who spread influence impressions trigger a momentum effect,
where friends share the mentions with friends, etc.
Discussion Opportunity—Ask: What product have you recently purchased that you would
classify as an innovation? Where did you hear about it? What thought process did you go
through before you made the purchase?
Discussion Opportunity—With input from students, make a list of products that fit the three
forms of innovations. Discuss the significance of these innovations. How does the promotion for
these products differ?
End-of-Chapter Support Material
SUMMARY OF SPECIAL FEATURE BOXES
1. Marketing Opportunity
Activities that were previously considered solitary activities, such as running, are not
more likely to be group activities.
2. The Tangled Web
Antibrand communities are online groups that are united by their disdain for a product.
These groups tend to attract social idealist who advocate nonmaterialistic lifestyles.
3. Marketing Opportunity
Consumers are spending a lot of money for the chance to hang out with and play with their
idols. Baseball camps, music groups and others all promote the relationship between idols
and fans.
4. The Tangled Web
When we make decisions as part of a group, we tend to have fewer restrains on our
behavior.
5. Marketing Pitfall
Social loafing happens when we don’t devote as much time or effort to a task because it
is part of a larger group effort.
6. Net Profit
Varsity Brands surveyed teenage girls to learn how they decide what to buy. Teen girls
lead the pack when it comes to spreading ideas via social media.
7. CB As I See It: Eileen Fischer, York University
When consumers share their opinions about products, there are often unintended
consequences. Fans of certain TV shows will reframe, remix, or reject new elements
when they are introduced in to the show.
8. The Tangled Web
Herding behavior is common among consumers as the mimic what others in a group do.
9. Net Profit
Massive multiplayer online role-playing games have created a growth area in digital
virtual consumption, where players spend real money to buy virtual goods.
10. CB As I See It: Jonah Berger, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
Word of mouth opinion sharing is frequent and important, and can go viral. Marketers try
to capitalize on this notion, but need to remember the psychology of viral content.
