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Social@Ogilvy find that brands are failing to fully appreciate the power of 2nd wave influencers

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The importance of engaging primary “Social influencers” in the rapidly ascending and ever-evolving online video (OV) channel has been well documented, but a pivotal aspect of its growth is being neglected: the significance of the “Second wave” of influencers who have the power to make or break a brand campaign. These secondary influencers, defined as those who share content received from other, primary influencers, are arguably the true key to a video going viral and achieving the highest levels of engagement and reach. At least according to a new study conducted by Ogilvy & Mather, TNS and Twitter.

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The research found that only one in five of the videos tested on Twitter managed to motivate the game-changing second wave of influencers. However, crucially, the vast majority of those that did (more than nine out of ten) were successful. These videos range in style and source from a five minute professional teaser for a TV series from Teen Nick, to a homemade, shaky nine minute film of a bear family taking a dip in a child’s paddling pool. Despite the diversity of successful OV, the research uncovers some common themes in winning content, which were found to motivate the second wave. The most significant of these being that secondary influencers want to add their own point of view, with 60% agreeing that this is a reason to share content; a percentage which jumps to 77% among the most influential OV sharers.

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When influencers shared an OV accompanied by a personal comment, these videos were proven to perform much better than those that were shared more passively, without a point of view expressed: 84% of the OVs tested which did this achieved a more widespread reach and more sustained momentum. Key to this success is an OV that captures a relatable moment in time, which could be a simple, routine event such as a lunch break or a major event such as a global sports competition. Only 21% of the OVs tested demonstrated this, but almost all of these (92%) achieved high reach and engagement on Twitter.

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Here's the Science Bit

The research, conducted by Social@Ogilvy, the division of O&M dedicated to social media, and TNS, the leading market research and market information group comprised two analysis streams; behavioural analytics and quantitative surveying. Behavioural Analytics focused on the sharing patterns of 66, English-language online videos via Twitter between 2015 and 2016, some of which were considered successful in terms of reach and engagement, others not. All example videos were categorised across key 'videographic' dimensions, including length, emotion, subject content, methods of creation and type of music. Each video’s performance on Twitter was assessed across criteria including views, stages of consumption across life of video, reach and engagement, shares, gender, influence of sharers and sentiment. This assessment was based on over 4.2 million conversations generated by these videos on Twitter, and identifies which of the videographic, video performance and diffusion parameters impact on the success of online videos and how. Analysis comprised social network maps to plot the diffusion of sharing on Twitter over time for each online video, and modelling used Bayesian models and neural networks to predict the success of videos to a certainty of 95%.

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Quantitative Online Surveying, meanwhile, explored online video and traditional TV consumption, sharing behaviours and the reasoning behind them. Surveying was conducted in the USA and UK via a 15 minute questionnaire amongst 1000 respondents in each country, who view and/or share online videos at least once a week. Age fallout was controlled at 70% 18-34 years of age and 30% 35-49 years of age to ensure a respondent base broadly representative of Twitter users. Surveying was conducted over 2 weeks in May 2016.

Example

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The Diffusion map (above) for the #whatdidzoeysay video demonstrates not only higher levels of engagement and sharing overall, but also clear evidence of a series of spin-off conversations and further sharing associated with the involvement of a second wave of influencers. A large red dot indicates initial post, number and start/end position of green lines represent sharing pathways (note: length of line is irrelevant), with areas of high sharing and conversation represented as dark green clusters, second wave influencers are depicted as smaller red and blue dots (only present in left hand side diffusion map).

Thomas Crampton, Global Managing Director of Social@Ogilvy, said: “There has been a disproportionate amount of focus on early influencers. They are important, but not sufficient to make a brand campaign successful. Our research found a crucial second wave of influential commentators. Brands need to re-evaluate the way they plan and run online video campaigns because, without the support of the second wave, they are bound for mediocrity. Brands must ensure, too, that their online videos are built for the small screen. Our research found basic rules of online video broken repeatedly. This limits potential success of online video as influencers are more likely to express themselves when using their mobiles.”

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This research underlines the importance that brands create online videos that motivate active comments rather than just passive consumption, and distinguish between super sharers with high levels of influence over large numbers of passive platform users, versus those who exert a high level of influence over others with equally high levels of social influence. In short, it's more about who you know, rather than how many people you know.

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