Exploring the market and finding relevant communities for a marketing start-up

1. SNA FOR FACEBOOK PAGES
EXPLORING THE MARKET AND FINDING RELEVANT
COMMUNITIES FOR A MARKETING STARTUP
CON N EC T 2 0 1 4 -2 016
C o n s u e l o A n g i o n i | 9 8 8 0 6 4

2. CASE DESCRIPTION
THE COMPANY
> Italian newly born marketing magazine
THE NEED
> compete in a market of online magazines and websites
> diversify the offer of contents from the competitors’one
THE STRATEGY
> using Facebook Pages to understand the audience and the competitors
> then reaching out to possible not marketing related communities

3. DATA COLLECTION
STEP 1 finding the list of competitors on Facebook
> facebook for developers – graph API
keyword: marketing
> Rfacebook
authentication and retrieval of data
STEP 2 retrieving the network of three competitors’ pages
> Netvizz
Inside Marketing
Marketing Arena
MOCA Interactive

4. NETWORK DESCRIPTION I
three pages network, one integrated (directed) graph

5. NETWORK DESCRIPTION I
>4240 nodes
>27529 edges

6. NETWORK DESCRIPTION I I
for a better visualization
> changed the size according to the degree
> Fruchterman Reingold and Force Atlas 2 layouts

7. NETWORK DESCRIPTION I I
density and degree distribution
density: 0,002
> not highly connected graph
power law distribution
> not many nodes with high degree and the
majority of the nodes with low degree
> scale free network
> preferential attachment

8. MEASURES OF CENTRALITY
comparison between in-degree and out-degree

9. MEASURES OF CENTRALITY
comparison between in-degree and out-degree
> 4 out of 5 of the pages with
the highest out-degree are
marketing and communication related

10. COMMUNITY DETECTION I

11. COMMUNITY DETECTION I
> modularity method1: divide the network
in clusters of nodes that are
more densely connected together
1 Fast unfolding of communities in large networks; Blondel, Guillaume, Lambiotte, Lefebvre

12. COMMUNITY DETECTION I I
> 14 communities highlighted
> checking the most central nodes
according to degree in those communities
> assigning a category for the most
relevant ones

13. COMMUNITY DETECTION I I I
color class representative nodes category
0 Talent Garden, Wired IT, CheFuturo, H-FARM Tech & Digital
4 Accademia Della Crusca, Il Sole 24 Ore, Treccani Culture
10
Advertising Age, The Festival Of Media, Ads of the
World
Worldwide Media References
8 Ninja Marketing, Inside Marketing, Studio Samo Italian Marketing
2 TED, Mashable, WIRED, The New York Times Famous Media & Opinionists
5 Cliclavoro, Opportunity Job, Informagiovani Careers & Opportunities
1 VAL D’OCA, Vinitaly, Primavera del Prosecco Brands of Beverages
8 communities identified as possible target audiences

14. CONCLUSIONS
> many of the pages with the highest out-degree are marketing-related
therefore it’s plausible to confirm that the competitors check on Facebook Pages
>there exist collateral communities related to the marketing world
>these collateral communities are related to the topics which are more relevant in
the marketing field

15. LIMITS AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
> exploring other measures of centralities and comparing results
> looking for bridges between communities
> exploring the Long Tail-communities in search for niches!

16. T h a n k y o u fo r fo l l o w i n g ! A ny q u e s t i o n ?