How Social Network and Opinion Leaders Affect the Adoption of New Products

2011 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raghuram Iyengar ◽  
Christophe Van den Bulte ◽  
John Eichert ◽  
Bruce West
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Peer Influence ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Self Confidence ◽  
Marketing Effectiveness ◽  
The Social

Abstract Do word-of-mouth and other peer influence processes really affect how quickly people adopt a new product? Can one identify the most influential customers and hence those who are good seeding points for a word-of-mouth marketing campaign? Can one also identify those customers most likely to be influenced by their peers? A pharmaceutical company seeking to improve its marketing effectiveness by leveraging social dynamics among physicians set out to answer these questions. There is indeed evidence of social influence, even after controlling for sales calls and individual characteristics. Also, people who are central in the network and those who use the product intensively are more influential. Finally, people who view themselves as opinion leaders are less affected by peer influence, whereas people who others really turn to for information or advice are not differentially affected. This last finding suggests that self-reported opinion leadership captures self-confidence, whereas a central position in the social network captures true leadership. Since sociometric techniques identify true opinion leaders more effectively than self-reports do, word-of-mouth programs targeting sociometric leaders are expected to be more effective than programs targeting self-reported leaders

scholarly journals Formation of raiding parties for intergroup violence is mediated by social network structure

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (43) ◽  
pp. 12114-12119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Glowacki ◽  
Alexander Isakov ◽  
Richard W. Wrangham ◽  
Rose McDermott ◽  
James H. Fowler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Network Structure ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
East African ◽  
Nomadic Pastoralists ◽  
Social Network Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Total Impact ◽  
Social Network Position

Intergroup violence is common among humans worldwide. To assess how within-group social dynamics contribute to risky, between-group conflict, we conducted a 3-y longitudinal study of the formation of raiding parties among the Nyangatom, a group of East African nomadic pastoralists currently engaged in small-scale warfare. We also mapped the social network structure of potential male raiders. Here, we show that the initiation of raids depends on the presence of specific leaders who tend to participate in many raids, to have more friends, and to occupy more central positions in the network. However, despite the different structural position of raid leaders, raid participants are recruited from the whole population, not just from the direct friends of leaders. An individual’s decision to participate in a raid is strongly associated with the individual’s social network position in relation to other participants. Moreover, nonleaders have a larger total impact on raid participation than leaders, despite leaders’ greater connectivity. Thus, we find that leaders matter more for raid initiation than participant mobilization. Social networks may play a role in supporting risky collective action, amplify the emergence of raiding parties, and hence facilitate intergroup violence in small-scale societies.

Analyzing Work Teams Using Social Network Diagrams

2014 ◽  
pp. 170-191
Author(s):  
Shalin Hai-Jew
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Power Structure ◽  
Work Team ◽  
Team Members ◽  
The Social ◽  
Workplace Teams ◽  
Project Phases ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Network Diagrams

Workplace teams are a common social structure that enables the successful completion of collaborative projects. They have been studied as “hot” teams, virtual ones, and other manifestations. For both management and team members, it is helpful to have a form of meta-cognition on teams to solve work team issues pre-, during-, and post-project. One way to systematize understandings of a work team is to apply social network analysis to depict the work team’s power structure, its functions, and ways to improve the team’s communications for productivity, creativity, and effective functioning. This chapter depicts three real-world team-based projects as social network diagrams along with some light analysis. This work finds that social network diagrams may effectively shed light on the social dynamics of projects in the pre-, during-, and post-project phases.

scholarly journals A natural experiment of social network formation and dynamics

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (21) ◽  
pp. 6595-6600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuan Q. Phan ◽  
Edoardo M. Airoldi
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Network Formation ◽  
High Stress ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Time Resolved ◽  
Diffusion Of Information ◽  
Social Network Formation

Social networks affect many aspects of life, including the spread of diseases, the diffusion of information, the workers' productivity, and consumers' behavior. Little is known, however, about how these networks form and change. Estimating causal effects and mechanisms that drive social network formation and dynamics is challenging because of the complexity of engineering social relations in a controlled environment, endogeneity between network structure and individual characteristics, and the lack of time-resolved data about individuals' behavior. We leverage data from a sample of 1.5 million college students on Facebook, who wrote more than 630 million messages and 590 million posts over 4 years, to design a long-term natural experiment of friendship formation and social dynamics in the aftermath of a natural disaster. The analysis shows that affected individuals are more likely to strengthen interactions, while maintaining the same number of friends as unaffected individuals. Our findings suggest that the formation of social relationships may serve as a coping mechanism to deal with high-stress situations and build resilience in communities.

scholarly journals Social Networks of Lexical Innovation. Investigating the Social Dynamics of Diffusion of Neologisms on Twitter

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quirin Würschinger
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Social Network Analysis ◽  
Network Analysis ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
New Words ◽  
Network Analyses ◽  
The Social ◽  
Lexical Innovation ◽  
Social Diffusion

Societies continually evolve and speakers use new words to talk about innovative products and practices. While most lexical innovations soon fall into disuse, others spread successfully and become part of the lexicon. In this paper, I conduct a longitudinal study of the spread of 99 English neologisms on Twitter to study their degrees and pathways of diffusion. Previous work on lexical innovation has almost exclusively relied on usage frequency for investigating the spread of new words. To get a more differentiated picture of diffusion, I use frequency-based measures to study temporal aspects of diffusion and I use network analyses for a more detailed and accurate investigation of the sociolinguistic dynamics of diffusion. The results show that frequency measures manage to capture diffusion with varying success. Frequency counts can serve as an approximate indicator for overall degrees of diffusion, yet they miss important information about the temporal usage profiles of lexical innovations. The results indicate that neologisms with similar total frequency can exhibit significantly different degrees of diffusion. Analysing differences in their temporal dynamics of use with regard to their age, trends in usage intensity, and volatility contributes to a more accurate account of their diffusion. The results obtained from the social network analysis reveal substantial differences in the social pathways of diffusion. Social diffusion significantly correlates with the frequency and temporal usage profiles of neologisms. However, the network visualisations and metrics identify neologisms whose degrees of social diffusion are more limited than suggested by their overall frequency of use. These include, among others, highly volatile neologisms (e.g., poppygate) and political terms (e.g., alt-left), whose use almost exclusively goes back to single communities of closely-connected, like-minded individuals. I argue that the inclusion of temporal and social information is of particular importance for the study of lexical innovation since neologisms exhibit high degrees of temporal volatility and social indexicality. More generally, the present approach demonstrates the potential of social network analysis for sociolinguistic research on linguistic innovation, variation, and change.

The Basque Seroras

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda L. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Central Position ◽  
Northern Spain ◽  
Religious Women ◽  
Parish Church ◽  
Early Modern Women ◽  
The Social

This book explores the intersections between local community, women's work, and religious reform in early modern northern Spain. The book illuminates the lives of these uncloistered religious women, who took no vows and were free to leave the religious life if they chose. Their vocation afforded them considerably more autonomy and, in some ways, liberty, than nuns or wives. The book recovers the surprising ubiquity of seroras, with every Basque parish church employing at least one. Their central position in local religious life revises how we think about the social and religious limitations placed on early modern women. By situating the seroras within the social dynamics and devotional life of their communities, the book reconceives of female religious life and the opportunities it could provide. It also shows how these devout laywomen were instrumental in the process of negotiated reform during the Counter-Reformation.

Targeting and Pricing in Social Networks

2016 ◽  
pp. 775-791 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Bloch
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
New Products ◽  
Social Effects ◽  
Consumption Externalities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Word Of Mouth Communication

This chapter analyzes the optimal use of social networks by firms that wish to diffuse new products, rely on word-of-mouth communication for advertising, or exploit consumption externalities among consumers. It focuses on two topics: the targeting of individuals to diffuse information or opinions in a social network, and the pricing at different nodes of the social network when agents experience consumption externalities. In both cases, firms take the network of social interaction as given and consider how to optimally leverage social effects to introduce new products or maximize profits .

Modeling Dyadic Interactions and Networks in Marketing

1992 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dawn Iacobucci ◽  
Nigel Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Word Of Mouth ◽  
Network Models ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Dyadic Interaction ◽  
Service Encounters ◽  
Dyadic Interactions

Many substantive areas in marketing share a basic concern with relationships. Social network and dyadic interaction methods are techniques that can enrich a researcher's understanding of the structure of relationships, whether a few actors or many are involved and whether the relationships are at the consumer or business level. Network models are discussed in a variety of substantive areas, including coalition formation in buying centers, identification of opinion leaders in word-of-mouth networks, power and cooperation in channel dyads, conflict resolution in family purchasing, and the management of expectations in service encounters. In addition, important modeling advances are described, including techniques that enable researchers to make comparisons between networks and adaptations of reciprocity parameters to allow for identification of stochastic cliques.

scholarly journals Whom Should I Talk To? Emerging Adults’ Romantic Relationship Work

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Jensen ◽  
Amy Rauer ◽  
Yuliana Rodriguez ◽  
Andrew Brimhall
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Emerging Adults ◽  
Romantic Relationship ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Relationship Functioning ◽  
Relationship Problems ◽  
Mothers And Fathers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Disclosure Patterns

This exploratory study examined how often young adults discussed their romantic relationship problems with their social networks: partners, friends, mothers, and fathers (“relationship work” or RW). Using a sample of 82 heterosexual, romantically involved young adults, we found that participants engaged in RW most frequently with partners, followed by friends and mothers, and least with fathers. Suggesting that young adults vary in their disclosure patterns, cluster analyses revealed three groups: disclosers, who shared romantic challenges with all parties examined; selectives, who primarily discussed romantic problems with partners and mothers; and discretes, who engaged in low RW overall. Although RW with mothers was not concurrently associated with partners’ love and conflict, RW with fathers was associated with less love and greater conflict. Moreover, when looking at a subsample of 56 participants who remained together over the course of a year, greater reported romantic love at Time 1 predicted less RW with fathers 1 year later at Time 2. Findings suggest that romantic and social dynamics in emerging adulthood may determine the extent to which young adults confide in their mothers and fathers about romantic problems, but that both parents play important roles. Scholars need to consider the influence of the social network, including parents, on romantic relationship functioning, particularly in young adulthood. Practitioners may also benefit from discussing appropriate and helpful ways of actively involving the social network in romantic challenges.

Advertising in a social network as a signal of quality

2021 ◽  
pp. 118-139
Author(s):  
Kamilla Timerbulatova
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Opinion Leaders ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
The Social ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Game Theoretic Model ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Separating Equilibrium

Advertising in a social network has a number of characteristics that distinguish it from other types of advertising, and which may be of key importance in answering the question about its ability to serve as a signal of quality. In the game-theoretic model presented in this paper, the monopolist sends an advertising signal to bloggers who act as “opinion leaders” in the social network. The latter, in turn, make decisions about posting advertising messages on their blogs, taking into account the impact that this action may have on their reputation. The paper investigates the question of when advertising can serve as a reliable signal of quality in a separating equilibrium.

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