Cutting Through the CrowdPractical Applications for Social Network Analysis

Presented By: @mikekujawski and @joshuagillmore

Who are we?MIKE KUJAWSKI JOSHUA GILLMORE

Dad. Husband. Managing Partner at @CEPSM

Management consultant, trainer, and speaker for governments, non-profits, and associations.

Niche: Strategic marketing and communications, digital engagement, social network analysis

Associate at @CEPSM and Analyst at @SecDev

Social media intelligence analyst who cuts through the data deluge to find answers to tough questions

Niche: Social network analysis, training and developing new methods for data driven decision-making

What we’re going to try to cover today:

• Growth of social data• Definition and brief history of SNA• Specific use cases • Basics of reading sociograms• Drilling down and refining your data• Application to public sector and NGO marketing• Examples of actionable insights• Using free basic tools• Using advanced tools (free or fee-based)• Closing considerations • Q & A

2.1/3.0 = 70%

2.5 quintillion (18 zeros) new data bytes produced daily

Increasing global comfort with sharing content online

Ipsos OTX. Weighted sample size of 12,000 across 24 countries. Survey question was “describe how much you share online (including status updates, feelings, photos, videos, links, etc.)”

Across an ever increasing amount of social platforms.

Various uses for examining social data:

Situational Awareness

• Developing an overview of an unknown situation or event to focus future analysis

Ongoing Monitoring

• Daily tracking of account activity and relevant keywords within a topic area

Social Network Analysis

• Acquire an understanding of the social dynamics for large-scale data to tell you who and how users are relating

Priority Information Requests

• Ask a pointed question to support an important decision

Investigations

• Acquire additional information on a person or organization

Engagement

• Analyze information around a communications goal or objective to provide engagement and content suggestions

Performance

• Assess performance effectiveness and progress based on defined metrics measured against targets

I work with social media.

Not that social media. This social media.

Requirements

Planning and Direction

Collection

Processing and Exploitation

Analysis and Production

Dissemination

Social media intelligence towards decision making.

“The first demonstration that the use of SOCMINT (social media intelligence) must make is that it works…the ‘success’ of intelligence is not the information or even secrets that it collects, but the value it adds to decision-making.” - Sir David Omand GCB

SNA Definition.

Social network analysis (SNA) is a strategy for investigating social structures through the use of network and graph theories.

It characterizes networked structures in terms of nodes (individual actors, people, or things within the network) and edges (relationships or interactions) that connect them.

Konigsberg Bridge Problem (1736)

First Grade Class (Grant - 1952)

Facebook Sociogram (2012)

Jefferson High School Sexual Relationship Study (Stovel, Moody, Bearman, 2005)

Network analysis in not new.

Air Canada Destroys Specialized Wheelchair

#TwitterStorm

My own social network challenge.

Cutting through the crowd.

Looking for the loudest. A problem.

Towards connecting based on relationships.

Mapping the 250,000 person digital crowd.

Communities typically represent.

Political Affiliations

Religious Groups Organizations

Social Movements

Informal Social Groups

Geographies

Languages Event Affiliation Botnets

A diverse array of statistics to measure various attributes.

Celebrity StatusBehind the Scenes

ActorsImportance and Responsiveness

Community Bridging

HyperconnectivityClustering and

Isolation

Affiliation with the Core Network

Directed Communications

Frequency

Descriptive Statistics on

Communications

Cutting through the crowd by raising the water.

Making sense from the data deluge.

You can apply network analysis principles to:

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific Communities

Isolate your key actors to a manageable level

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

Towards engaging directly… or indirectly.

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

Greatest Influence

YouInfluence is Halved

Friends (1st

Degree)

Influence is Halved

Friends of Friends (2nd

Degree)

Negligible to No

Influence

Friends of Friends of

Friends (3rd

Degree)

Applicable to multiple social behaviours.

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

1. Turn the User into a Content Filter

2. Acquire content in the quickest way

3. Understand community dynamics

4. Create sharable monitoring resources

Monitor these user directly to:

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

Collaboratively monitor by community.

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

Use communities for engagement.

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

1. Identity - Why they associate

2. Values - What they should say

3. Norms - How they should act

4. Perception - How they view events and

issues

Guiding users will typically act as an indicator for:

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

Use additional SM indicators to refine engagement.

1. Engage Directly and Indirectly

2. Efficient and Responsive Monitoring Practices

3. Target and Tailor Communications to Specific

Communities

SNA has direct applications to the marketing process

Example 1 – DFO Brand Network.

Example 2 – Spotlight Analysis on DFO Pacific.

Example 3 – Oceans & Science Network

Example 4 – Spotlight Analysis on Cacouna Community.

Example 5 – Mentions of ATIP or Access to Information

Example 6 -Snowball Sampling from a single FB page

Intact- co-ordinatedanti-circumcision community

Part of larger anti-circumcision community

anti-vaccine community

human-milk only community

libertarians, anarchists, etc...

Free basic social network visualization tools

Free Tool #1 – MentionMapp.com (yes, it has two “p’s”)

Free Tool #2 – SocioViz.net

Free Tool #3 – Netyltic.org

Free Tool #4 – NexaSearch (Free HootSuite App)

1. Collect your Data

2. Process your Data

3. Enrich your Data

4. Analyze your Data

5.Execute

Of course, you can also pay some $ for extra mileage.

Data collection in a fractured landscape.

Garbage in = Expensive garbage out.

Convert the data into the proper format.

Advanced Tool #1 – Gephi Used for network manipulation.

Advanced Tool #2 - NodeXL Used to collect and explore sociograms in Excel.

Advanced Tool # 3 - Tableau Used to analyze the data.

Advanced Tool #4 - Bottlenose Enterprise SNA

Advanced Tool #5 - NexaMaster Enterprise SNA

Need to understand the visuals and underlying principles

Change isn't easy once you have your sample

Not easy to turn everything into a nail with your hammer

Garbage in = Garbage Out

Remember that it’s all about relationships not platforms

Follow us at: @mikekujawski and @joshuagillmoreAlso be sure to visit our website at CEPSM.ca for our latest training and service offerings