Three Degrees of Separation Acquisition Strategy

The Three Degrees of Separation Acquisition Strategy is a customer acquisition model whereby participants reach out to their online social network and email contacts within an invite-only private membership format. Those invited to join gain access to the potential incentives and rewards commonly offered through customer loyalty programs. Recent studies show that although a person may be connected to other people by six degrees of separation, he or she is influenced only by those connections up to three degrees away. Thus a diminishing influence is evident as the degrees of separation increase beyond three. Through the Three Degrees of Separation Acquisition Strategy, invited members are connected by a shared interest or social group.

Personal Influence Trends
According to a study carried out by O2, the impact of social networking and developments in technology, Six Degrees of Separation, has fallen to three. O2 commissioned social organizational specialist Jeff Rodrigues, who recognized three main networks from an examination on the impact of technology on how connected people are. Rodrigues noticed that people are usually part of three main networks based on family, friendship and work. Outside of these they are, on average, part of five main shared ‘interest’ networks based on a range of personal interests. It is the growth of these shared interest networks and the influence of technology on them that has led to the reduction in the number of degrees of separation from six to three.
The continually growing number of Social Networks shows the relationship between individuals within the networks, and the various links relating each individual. Social networks operate under an autonomous business model, in which a social network's members serve dual roles as both the suppliers and the consumers of content. This is in contrast to a traditional business model, where the suppliers and consumers are distinct agents.
Types/variations of Acquisition Models
Customer Acquisition
Customer acquisition is defined as "techniques used to gain new customers" by Dave Chaffey, best-selling author of Internet Marketing. Successful customer acquisition management strategies should increase profitability while satisfying the business objective and creating satisfied and loyal customers. Many companies are upgrading their conventional customer acquisition strategies to leverage emerging trends in e-commerce and social networking. Jody Nimetz, author of Marketing Jive, lists five major uses for business and social media: to create brand awareness, as an online reputation management tool, for recruiting, to learn about new technologies and competitors, and as a lead generation tool to intercept potential prospects. These more recent advertising models enable consumers to exchange information about products and services, which deepens trust, confidence and customer loyalty.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Pay-Per-Click is a “marketing system on the Web in which the advertiser pays when the user clicks on its advertisement and goes to its site. This is a more interactive, results-oriented method compared to paying for just the placement of a banner ad on a Web page regardless if anyone clicks on it.” A company’s budget for PPC marketing can correlate directly to its cost-per-acquisition model or can be analyzed along with any other marketing channels in use.
Social Shopping
Social shopping sites are rising in popularity due to word-of-mouth referrals and building online trust. Businesses are finding new ways to capture and retain customers through this popular and interactive medium. Taking it a step further, invitation-only social networks can increase the desire to ‘belong’ to a certain online brand and seen as a symbol of status among friends and colleagues.
Philosophical Principles
Six Degrees of Separation is a theory inspired by the interconnectedness of the world, based on results published by American Sociologist Stanley Milgrim and Jeffrey Travers. Milgrim hypothesized that each of us within a social network is no more than six degrees or steps away from each other. In his experiment, he theorized it would be possible to send a package from Point A (midwest) to Point B (Massachusetts) with only six stops in between.
Each sender would send to a friend they thought most likely to know the stranger at the end.
Instead of making hundreds of stops from point A to point B, as presumed; it took on average, between five and seven stops before the package arrived at the end of the line. Since then, this popular concept has intrigued the minds of many and flooded the world of media, art and literature. Plays, movies and music have been born around this central theme. It has also crossed over to social & peer groups and socially based customer acquisition strategies, including the Three Degrees of Separation.<ref name="release" />

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