Deirdre Breckenridge, author of "PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences.":  How do you analyze social networks and how are you monitoring communication?

Neal Gorenflo, FAS.research:  There are two ways to find the critical parts of a network – construct a mechanical model or use profiling.

To construct a mechanical model or network visualization, we need data that shows how people are connected.  Online social networks, Blogs, mobile phone call records, e-mail servers, patent databases, and co-publishing databases are typical data sources that have information about how people are connected.  We take this data and apply proprietary algorithms to create social network maps and indices.  Maps make visible the structure of the network.  This helps with the macro strategy – how to move messages from community to community.  Indices quantify the value of each person’s ability to spread messages and influence social connections.  This helps with the micro-strategy – how to address each individual or discrete clusters in the network. 

The profiling technique we use is similar to how the FBI finds serial killers.  The FBI analyzes the commonalities of serial killers to construct a profile.  This helps them know what to look for, not only in terms of the psychological profile but also where they are likely to live.  We do a similar thing to identify people that play the key roles in spreading messages in a network - the hubs, connectors and spreaders.  We’ve found that each class of role is composed of people who share similar characteristics.  Connectors, no matter where they come from, share some key values with other connectors.  It’s rarely a 100% match, but there are markers for each role that allow us to assign a probability that someone is a hub, connector or spreader.  This is incredibly valuable for direct marketing.  It’s helps marketers design viral messages tailored to each role and target those that will most likely spread the message.

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