The guys over at Razorfish consistently pump out some amazing work. They’ve just released the Social Influence Marketing report which is:

…the first report of its kind which understands who and what influences consumers at different points in the marketing funnel.

Social influence marketing (and measurement) is something that we’ve been tracking quite strongly here at Max Rover – it’s one of our key movements in the next 12 to 18 months along with the increased use of digital brand ambassadors. It’s great to see some supporting research and best practices arise out of powerhouses like Razorfish.The report aims to bust 3 myths about social influence marketing:

1. That companies have figured out how to build their brands in social media. They haven’t. For example, six out of 10 consumers don’t bother to seek out opinions of brands via social media.

2. That television is dead. It isn’t. Consumers view TV ads as more trustworthy than ads on social networks. Marketers need to do more in the social realm, but they need to do it in a way that builds trust first. Brands don’t have the trust today.

3. That you cannot measure in the social web. Not only do campaign specific metrics matter and can be measured but we believe a SIM Score for the social web is extremely important. Think of it as the blood pressure for the brand in the social web. In the report, we introduce this index and show the SIM Scores of 5-6 brands in 4 industries. We also compare the online numbers to offline share of voice data to demonstrate how those two worlds are blurring.

You can view an online version of the report here as well as download a PDF version to read later. It’s quite a lengthy report and might take some time to work through, but definitely worth it!