#Chapter 5 - Network Analysis
- Mo Ca
- Dec 7, 2018
- 13 min read
How to analyse your network
to enhance your social media strategy?
The idea of this chapter is to understand your network and the online environment to enhance your social media strategy. You’ve got a network and that’s good. But you need to know how to make your community grow. To do so, you need to learn how and why to monitor your community in an effective way. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. You will see. We already discussed what are social media but we will get deeper into how it works for you to untangle the functioning and dissemination of information in online social networks.
" On average Facebook censors one out of thirteen stories for their users (Sunstein, 2018). Well, not Facebook, but its algorithm. It determines what will pop up in your news feed. But how does this work? And how can you, as a startup, take advantage of this? That is one of the things the team YouPro will introduce and explain to you in this chapter."
What is the process of social media?
What is an algorithm on social networks?
A social network algorithm enables to optimise the content display on user newsfeeds regarding the presupposed interest this user can have toward this content and also regarding the relational proximity this user has with the issuer of the content. (Définitions Marketing, 2016)
As an upcoming startup, we advise you to be at least on Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook which are for us the most relevant professional networks. We also advise you to have a website, of course. This means that you will have to be ranked on the Google algorithm which gives you a score. This score determines your position in the Google researches. But we will talk about it just later on. Therefore, just read this part to understand how the algorithms work on those various networks.
How does EdgeRank, Facebook's algorithm, work?
EdgeRank is based on the past interactions of the users. It categorizes all posts and adds labels to them (Wiltshire, 2018). Based on your interactions with comparable posts it suggests you content. This is why during the elections of 2016 a lot of people got to see content from just one presidential candidate since they reacted negatively towards the other. This allows social networks to place people in bubbles and target their messages more. This is beneficial for Facebook, also for you even if it is kind of tricky. Because if you want to appeal to as many people as possible, you need to show up in all their feeds. The image shows how your feed is influenced by your previous interactions, on Facebook. (Buffer Blog)
However, you have to be careful and to be aware of all the changes. Indeed, EdgeRank is always evolving and still kind of mysterious for users: Facebook does not communicate about how to get a good EdgeRank. However, we know that it is based on 3 principles (Rousse-Marquet; 2017):
- Affinity enables to know the connexion degree you have with the user who posted the Edge (which is every activity on Facebook which can create a notification on the newsfeed: likes, tags, comments, answers to the event and so on). The more 2 users are connected, the more important would be the infinity.
- Weight take into account two factors:
➔ the publication type: it is still difficult to know what type of publications weight most but usually, rich content like photos or videos as a better score than simple link or text.
➔ the interactions (actions on publication: likes, comments, shares and so on): shares and comments are more important than simple likes (John, Emrich, Gupta, Norton; 2017).
- Decay: the more recent is a publication, the more valuable it is. Generally, according to SocialBakers, a post receives more interactions just some minutes after being published.
How does Twitter’s algorithm, work?
We know less about the Twitter algorithm as it is more recent. What has always been a particularity is that the posts are less related to the decay than on the other social networks. But as on Facebook, it is always changing. With that algorithm, Twitter is not considered as a real social network but more as a timeline of personalised information (Ropars, 2017). When you open Twitter, it collects all the tweets from the people you follow and it gives a level of importance to each. The ranking of the Timeline follows those criteria:
- The engagement of the tweet: retweets, clicks, likes and time spent when reading
- The engagement of the tweet regarding of the engagement on the other tweets of the author
- The age of the tweet: a more recent tweet is better ranked
- The frequency of engagement you have with the author of the tweet
- The time you already spent reading his author tweets, even without ever engaging with them
- The media use in the tweet: images, videos, links
As a matter of fact, Twitter is not neutral anymore but works as a filter bubble: it creates a space of content with content which looks like you. Then, you don’t confront opinions but you have more confidence for them.
How do Linkedin’s algorithms work?
On Linkedin, it is not as developed as on Facebook or Twitter. It uses various algorithms to classify and order the results you obtain when you are looking for people. Therefore, the way your profile appears depends on the research someone has done. Each member has a rank of relevance and it is based on diverse factors. Linkedin advises to add relevant keywords to your profile for instance.
How do Google’s algorithms work?
Google is relying on a lot of various algorithms. We just want you to understand how it works without going too much in details. Google is like an entire library and when you ask it a question, with a keyword, let's say "Startup’, it will look at all its files to know what we are talking about. In the image, you can see that a lot of pages had been found. And Google ranks all of those pages.
To be well ranked on Google's researches, you really need to focus on the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or the art to position your website, webpage or application in the first natural (not paid) results of the research engine (here on Google). More than a hundred criteria are taking into account in Google's algorithm and their nature varied in time regarding the evolutions of the algorithm and the filters of Google.
Visibility and invisibility: how can you subvert the algorithm?
As we saw in the previous part, you should really focus on your SEO: this form of organic growth is the cheapest and most relevant way of advertising. But you might want now to get some tips to be more visible on the social networks (and follow the logic of algorithm):
- Post content promoted by the algorithm and target your post
- Use new images
- Look at your page statistics and use them to know which type of publication receives more engagement and when to post.
- Post regularly
- Post rich content which obtains better visibility in the newsfeeds
- Advice your followers to subscribe to the notifications of your page
Moreover, making contact is also a goal of social networking, make sure you only lay contact with people you have actually met. If you start sending personal messages to everyone on Facebook (via Messenger) there will be a big chance that your account will be flagged as spam. Spam accounts will not show up in the feeds of others.
Also, avoid the so-called “Engagement bait” (Coëffé, 2017) which is when you ask directly the users to engage. Since 2017, Facebook penalised the pages which are doing it for instance. It can be share baiting like “share with your friends to participate” or tag baiting like “tag a friend whose names start with a B” as examples. Therefore, make sure the content you post is the cause for engagement. Although it is tempting to try and make people engage with your posts this way so it is also a cause to marked as spam! If you don’t want to be invisible, just don’t do that.
Why should you analyse your Networks?
A good network will help your business and even your life; however, it will not bring you anywhere if you just sit down and do nothing about it. In essence, we would like to provide you with information on this matter, in order to be on top of the game in using your network. Before the internet emerged, networking took time and effort, even to analyse it, which was complicated. In today’s digital age, you could check your network activity through social media within your laptop or smartphone.
From a theoretical point of view, here is the key point for you to get started and refresh your mind: Social Network Analysis is the act of seeing relationship consists of nodes and ties, to see the links between both factor. The field of Social Network Analysis is the dynamic and highly adaptable group of techniques that let us quantify and understand the complex structures and flows of relationships, thoughts, and things between people around the world. (Mod.U, 2015).
*Nodes: individual actors within your networks *Ties: the relationship between the actors (Politaktiv, 2011).
Analysing network will give you a deeper understanding of attitudes, communication and information flows of your network. Once network implemented, you can evaluate and build your existing network to develop it further. Basically, it enables you to understand how social networks work so you can act accordingly.
The Main Idea of Network Analysis
Before we continue to explain more, it is paramount to understand the logic behind network analysis. Social networks are formed between people or organizations, where both represent communication, attitudes and information flow. Therefore, to analyse it means to examine the relationship between those things, in order to see the patterns that emerged out of the interaction (Poutas,2011).
By understanding your network, you can also decide what to share to your network. For example, you know that most of the people within your network are currently discussing networking events, you could share or give some information about it. In brief, after you analyse your network, you know what to share with whom. It makes your interaction more effective and improves your engagement with your network. Within the business context, analysing your network could be your best strategy to understand the market, consumer preference or your connection. It is actually handy for a startuper to get insights from their network because you could get information that you are interested in. As we mentioned in the first chapter that 'network is your net-worth', it is also crucial to make the best use out of it.
In brief, analysing your network or ‘network analysis' will help you to know your network better and also find out the current trends and topic being discussed within your network. The following points are the benefits that you can get from it (Alienor, 2017):
• Getting to know the 'hot topic' and insights, so you didn't miss a thing.
• Understanding ‘who are the most active entities in your networks’ and ‘who are they following’.
• Information is being shared regularly, day in and day out, which means you get tons of information within your network.
• You can use it to understand your target audience or network better.
• Know your network’s needs and desires.
• Maximise the opportunity to develop better interaction with your network.
How can you analyse your Networks?
What is social media monitoring?
As a young professional who wants to create a startup, social media analytics will help you to understand the environment of your early adopters, but also of your competitors and the overall business trends. So what is very important, now, is to know how to monitor your social media network as to analyse it and have a clear picture of it. Through social media monitoring, you can track, gather and mine the information and data of your target audience as to assess your reputation and discern how you are perceived online. You have first, to define an objective and decide where, when and what to monitor. After that, you can follow the following steps to monitor your social network:
● You need first to capture your data: to collect data, you need to determine which metrics to capture regarding your organizational goals and related KPIs (it can be a number of clicks, engagement rate and so on). It often appears to be the easiest part)
● Then, you have to understand your data: to understand your social media analytics, you have to access the data and explore it using tables and graphics. This enables you to determine the quality of the data collected and describe the results after. It is considered as the hardest part.
● Finally, you need to present the data to your stakeholders: nowadays, organisations often rely on real-time social media analytics to guide day-to-day decisions. To do so, stakeholders need to get good grasps of the results you have and so to read and look at something attractive and simple.
Tools you can use
To monitor what your target audience is saying across the internet, there are a lot of different tools depending on the social networks you will use. We already advises you to create accounts on Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook as to reach your target audience because they are professional social networks. Depending on the type of startup you want to create, you can also have an Instagram account or even a Youtube one. But don't be trapped by the name, the social media monitoring tools are not just covering social networks. They can also monitor forums, blogs, news site, review sites, RSS feeds and so on.
Usually, the monitoring tools are crawling sites continuously and indexing them in real time (you never miss a thing), every 10 minutes or weekly. You might want to know how does it work? Well, it is very simple.
You write a query to find the mentions you are interested in (“startup” for instance). The tools aim at showing you the most important data for you and the data which are more relevant than a basic google search. In the following part, you will find some useful tools you can use:
Hootsuite covers multiples social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Wordpress or Google+. It is a very simple tool to use and also one of the best free social media listening tools available. It is also useful when you are more than one person handling the social media accounts.
TweetReach can help you to check how far your tweets travel. As an upcoming startuper, it can be very useful as it measures the actual impact and implications of social media discussions. Thanks to that, you can find who your most influential followers are and also who you should be targeting when you want to share and promote online content.
Facebook analytics helps you to measure the engagement of your target audience, the way they interact on your Facebook page and how your ad campaigns work.
Google Alerts is a tool to monitor the research on Google through keywords. The results of the alert are sent to you via e-mail or RSS flux.
And now, what can you do with your data?
It can be complicated to manage and understand all the data you have collected. That’s why you can try to make it more visual to put forward the key points to explain the data in a simple way (data visualisation). For you, upcoming startuper, the data collected will help you in decision making for your social media strategy. Thanks to these data, you can for instance:
• See which words are trending for you: it can be for instance creativity, innovation or even startup as a beginning.
• Track consumer sentiment about a particular topic (sentiment analysis). Indeed, now you know how to create an emotional post for your target audience.
• Observe the engagement trend: when your target audience talks about you and how. It can help you to change or enhance your social media strategy.
• Identify potential influencers talking about you online. Those influencers can help you grow your community. We already talked about it in chapter 4.
We hoped this part and the previous ones helped you to understand the importance to monitor your social network. But if you are not yet convinced, we have chosen a video which resumes this chapter. We thought it would be more pedagogic to finish by a video.
Best practice from
the startup Bloom
For once, we will not give you best tips from a startup or someone we met but a good example of a startup you can use and learn from: Bloom.
Bloom is a French startup which was born in 2016 and created by Bruno Breton, a digital media and marketing specialist and Alexander Polonsky, mathematics researcher. They knew that understand and exploit data on the social networks is nowadays a fundamental stake for brands. But they realised that the monitoring tools available on the market are not sufficient anymore. For them, we can’t just simply do quantitative analyse on the social networks. The new stake is to know what do we do with all this data. Nowadays, qualitative data became the key. That’s why they imagine a new technology to provide a bigger algorithmic level than on the traditional monitoring platforms.
It is an artificial intelligence platform and a leader data consulting agency. It is specialised in the strategic analysis of the discussions and interactions on the most famous social networks for brands. This means that it identifies the opinions on the social networks, but also the needs and the interests of the users through the conversations. Their co-founder had developed a technology to explore and analyse the social networks based on transgressive algorithms which mean without being through constraint. It enables to establish unique correlations between the contents and to follow a conversation spread.
Bloom is on the top 1% of the most promising startup. It has been examined in details by Early Metrics, a startup rating agency. It was grade 84/100 which enables it to be part of the innovative business which is the most promising in the new technologies market (big data and social media). Bloom is also the only business on the market to know how to analyse the emotions of the users. This powerful technology enables to obtain a clear vision of the influences and opinions on the social networks. A lot of big brands trust that startup today like Havas, Samsung or SNCF. Even important media or politicians are interested in this solutions.
We know that this kind of solutions can be really useful for you: thanks to Bloom you can monitor your social networks in a different way, maybe more relevant. This example also shows you how it is possible to have a successful startup when meeting with the needs of the market. However, it shows you also how far can go the process of data and you can wonder if this is really ethical. We will talk about it in the last chapter.
In short, we are sure you know why you need to analyse your network. It will help you in your everyday life as a startup to get a better insight into your market, the consumer and your business. We gave you a variety of social monitoring tools to help you in doing so. In this chapter and the next one, you learned and you will learn how to listen and monitor your target audience, but in the next and final chapter, we will talk to you about the limits of this. We will take a look at what ethical issues listening, monitoring and personalising ads can be created. But for the moment, in the next chapter, it will be time for you to know how to make your community engage with you thanks to the art of listening.
Team YouPro
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