Consumer Shopping Trends Analyzed With Graph Theory
With the emergence of social media within the last decade, traditional marketing techniques are no longer adequate in attracting new customers to businesses. A new metric, the “Connections among customers”, abbreviated as C2C has become increasingly powerful in its influence on consumer purchasing trends. The jumbled mass of social network data obtained from the corporate Twitter accounts of Target and Macy’s was sorted through and deconstructed by an application called NodeXL. This analysis reveals a network graph with nodes being twitter accounts, and the edges representing any form of social media interaction (whether it be a link, like, retweet, mention, follow, etc.) These graphs, while extremely large and complex, can be analyzed with graph theory to focus on users that could potentially become new customers.
The graph above shows a network of roughly 5000 twitter users that have mentioned Target over a 4 day period. The edges in this graph are directed, and the nodes were grouped into clusters using a “Clauset-Newman-Moore” cluster algorithm. A quick look at this graph shows that there are many large clusters outside from the main corporate Target account. These clusters have a central user that creates a “hub and spoke” pattern. These users can be seen as “brand ambassadors” in that they play a major role in helping target reach more isolated users, which are seen in the bottom right corner of this graph with very few visible edges. Target can focus on using these ambassadors to reach out to isolated users, as these users are only connected with weak ties, as these users are more likely to not yet be customers. This outreach could be beneficial to both the consumers and to Target. Many of the tweets being shared on the site relate to special deals being offered by the retailer, and who doesn’t like to save money? The spread of this information through social networks could increase the likelihood of customers finally deciding to shop at Target, generating more sales. Thus, the key to successful online marketing may ultimately lie in the strength of weak ties and improving C2C!
Source: http://risnews.edgl.com/retail-news/Mapping-the-Social-Media-Network–Target-vs–Macy-s100656