TO Become the “1% People”

Yesterday, Andrew Soucy and Cristina Khoury-Folkens from W2O group came to our class and shared approaches of reaching costumers. The W2O group is an independent network of complementary marketing, communications, research and development firms focusing on integrated business solution. It served many famous clients and had tons of experience on communication strategies. Although it is not my first time to know about “1-9-90” theory, I gained something different comparing to last time because I had had experiences from my internships and had learned advanced public relations courses this year. First, the one percent people can be considered as influencers. They are making contents, sharing opportunities in the daily bases and leading the conversations on the social media platforms. The nine percent people are called “superfans”, which means they are reposting or retweeting messages from the one percent people. Last, ninety percent people are general audiences. They usually choose to observe the world and may click the links but not write any comments or express opinions in public. After dividing the audiences into three parts, we can make different tones and engage with them in different ways. First, if we want to reach the one percent people, we will get the story and give them as resources. I remember last time when I attended the W2O workshop, the discussion leader analyzed a case of promoting an acne removal product. In order to create presences on social media and build reputations for the brand, the PR people contacted several influential web celebrities and bloggers who are known of sharing make-up and skin care products and gave them free products as trials. Therefore, if they are satisfied with the products, they will share their experiences on social media. I think those people are “one percent people” in this case. What we can do is to address them with their interested topics and maintain relationships with them. The nine percent people could be the followers and fans of the web celebrities and bloggers. They would like to use the same products and help create the presences of the brand. Therefore, in order to make those nine percent people spread out information, PR people should make social graphic analysis, look at what their key interests, and indirectly pitch them through people who they follow. We should push ourselves to first become the nine percent people. Always share excellent contents, make critical comments and repackage the information. If we continue practicing, we will grow as the one percent people and create the trends ourselves finally. We also need to think about building our own brand and start our influence from now, which can contribute to our future careers.