Identification of influencers - Measuring influence in customer networks

Christine Kiss, Martin Bichler

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

309 Scopus citations

Abstract

Viral marketing refers to marketing techniques that use social networks to produce increases in brand awareness through self-replicating viral diffusion of messages, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. The idea has successfully been used by marketers to reach a large number of customers rapidly. If data about the customer network is available, centrality measures provide a structural measure that can be used in decision support systems to select influencers and spread viral marketing campaigns in a customer network. Usage stimulation and churn management are examples of DSS applications, where centrality of customers does play a role. The literature on network theory describes a large number of such centrality measures. A critical question is which of these measures is best to select an initial set of customers for a marketing campaign, in order to achieve a maximum dissemination of messages. In this paper, we present the results of computational experiments based on call data from a telecom company to compare different centrality measures for the diffusion of marketing messages. We found a significant lift when using central customers in message diffusion, but also found differences in the various centrality measures depending on the underlying network topology and diffusion process.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)233-253
Number of pages21
JournalDecision Support Systems
Volume46
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2008

Keywords

  • Centrality
  • Customer relationship management
  • Network theory
  • Viral marketing
  • Word of mouth marketing

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