May 26th, 2009
Using Network and Influence Analysis to Map Social Media Consumer Behavior
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Stephen Baker at BusinessWeek has a great cover story on how social networking companies and marketers are using network and influence analysis to map social media consumer behavior and target ads to cluster of friends who share similar interests.
While research has shown that friends tend to behave similarly online, it has also raised lots of questions about the nature of online friendships. Most researchers now agree that all friendships networks aren’t the same.
Microsoft Research sociologist dana boyd explains the difference between personal, behavioral and articulated networks –
Facebook researcher Cameron Marlow differentiates between maintained relationships, one-way communications and two-way communications.
Duncan Watts from Yahoo! Research studies the structure and evolution of social networks, the origins and consequences of social influence, and the nature of distributed social search.
Apart from citing cutting edge network analysis research at Facebook, Microsoft and Yahoo!, the article also features the work of network analysis firms such as 33Across and Rapleaf.
33Across’s SocialDNA platform maps the social characteristics of tens of millions of people to enable its clients to target users who are most likely to respond to their marketing campaigns.
