Influencers and Mavens
To me they are one in the same. Recent eMarketer article:
According to “The Influencer: A Consumer Voice with Legs,” a white paper from ICOM, a division of Epsilon Targeting, this key group of customers is most identifiable not by demographics but by behavior.
If you’ve ever read “Tipping Point”, the author, Malcolm Gladwell, describes people as to belonging in certain behavior categories.
Thank you, Wikipedia:
Mavens are “information specialists”, or “people we rely upon to connect us with new information.”[9] They accumulate knowledge, especially about the marketplace, and know how to share it with others. Gladwell cites Mark Alpert as a prototypical Maven who is “almost pathologically helpful”, further adding, “he can’t help himself”.[10] In this vein, Alpert himself concedes, “A Maven is someone who wants to solve other people’s problems, generally by solving his own”.[11] According to Gladwell, Mavens start “word-of-mouth epidemics”[12] due to their knowledge, social skills, and ability to communicate. As Gladwell states, “Mavens are really information brokers, sharing and trading what they know”.[13]
You can call this person a Maven, you can call them an Influencer, but they behave the same way. They are the earliest adopters, they keep on top of new information, and they are the go-to person, the expert in their circle. This circle can be the garden club or Facebook network.
How do you nurture a Maven? On the web, many PR companies buy them, mass mailing free products etc for plugs. Eventually, this will make bloggers not so different from your online fashion magazine.
The key is to let your Mavens choose you…not to buy them. Once you’ve built that relationship of brand and super customer, brands should support their behavior of wanting the most up to date information, having their opinion put on a platform, and generate buzz around their advice.
