Social Media Marketing eBook

Amazon’s Top Reviewers are Influencers,Too

Garth Risk Hallberg recently published his first novella, A Field Guide to the North American Family. Subsequently, he received his first Amazon review, from Grady Harp, a top ten Amazon reviewer. He started exploring the upper echelons of Amazon reviewers, and discovered some interesting stuff:

My own research suggests that GH is no more or less credible than Amazon’s other “celebrity reviewers.” Harriet Klausner, No. 1 since the inception of the ranking system in 2000, has averaged 45 book reviews per week over the last five years—a pace that seems hard to credit, even from a professed speed-reader. Reviewer No. 3, Donald Mitchell, ceaselessly promotes “the 400 Year Project,” which his profile identifies only as “a pro bono, noncommercial project to help the world make improvements at 20 times the normal rate.” John “Gunny” Matlock, ranked No. 6 this spring, took a holiday from Amazon, according to Vick Mickunas of the Dayton Daily News, after allegations that 27 different writers had helped generate his reviews.

Elsewhere in the piece, Garth seems a little surprised that his publicist solicited Harp’s review, and that the Amazon reviewers may be actively gaming their own (and their friends’) rankings. Garth may be feigning his surprise for the sake of the article. Such behaviour shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody who’s participated in any sort of social network with abstract popularity valuations. People will struggle to accrue the most karma points, cred or (as is the case on Amazon) ‘helpful votes’. These currencies also help marketers like us identify and target the influencers in a community.

This reminded me of a point we make in the book about identifying niche communities to engage:

Most important to the marketer, there are many websites that only cover a particular industry or category. It may be more valuable to identify the niche social news website in your industry and focus your efforts there. If you run a winery, then 1,000 oeniphiles from Cork’d or OpenBottles are probably more valuable than 15,000 users from Digg.

Amazon reviewers hardly constitute a niche, but I’m sure there are top reviewers for very specific book categories. So if you’ve got a book on terriers, for example, don’t necessarily pitch the top reviewers. Pitch the top reviewers of pet books instead.

UPDATE: Matthew’s discussion of the furor over recent Digg algorithm changes highlights how hotly contested such topics can be.

Tags: amazon, garth risk hallbert, grady harp, niches, reviewers