How's this for passion?

A recent study by Yahoo! and MediaVest tracked online customers with a variety of passions-- health, sports, food and entertainment. The coining of term "Passionista" resulted from the fact that they found a segment that spends a significantly greater amount of time engaged in online activities related to their passion.

The statistics are interesting:

• For every minute a typical Internet user spends with the same online content, Passionistas spend six.


• Passionistas will visit a Web site related to their passion three times more than a typical Internet user.

Put two and two together... Marketers and advertisers are eating this up.

Because these users "heavily engage with communities of like-minded consumers who use e-mail, text messaging and instant messaging significantly more than typical users, and are more likely to create and share user-generated content online such as photos, blog posts or videos about their passions," companies are purposely stimulating conversation.

A perfect example is "Onslaught," part of the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, which will be released to YouTube on Monday. Everyone remembers the last incredibly successful viral video released by Dove. Perhaps, with the help of passionistas, "Onslaught" will achieve even greater success. Steve Hayden, vice chairman of Dove agency Oglivy & Mather, certainly hopes so.

So, the so-called passionistas search the Internet, apparently for hours and hours, for timely information related to their passion. They find it. They spread it. They spread it like crazy.

According to Sepideh Saremi, this makes the case for social media marketing.

Passionistas are 52 percent more likely to be brand "evangelists." Let's hope they like Dove!