What the change management community looks like on Twitter - mini research

Change Management has been amongst the top corporate priorities for some time now, yet it still poses serious challenges to even some of the most flexible and responsive organizations. For Change Management to be effective and successful, it is absolutely essential to identify the most influential members and change agents within an organization's internal stakeholder network. And that is exactly what we do with our cloud-based organizational diagnostic tool, OrgMapper.

This time, however, we wanted to see who these influential key players are online, thus we used Diktio Labs, our online community mapping suite, and conducted a mini research to identify whom the Twitter community considers Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) when it comes to the topic of change management, and the ideas that connect them.



How we did this

We monitored a specific set of keywords related to Change Management from September 14 to October 7, 2015,­ and mined over 17,000 tweets, tracking the activities of 9,054 users. The below image showcases the network of key hubs.



Each node (lilac dot) in the above network represents a Twitter account; the more interaction a user gets, the larger their node and label will be. For a better visual experience, the network is filtered to only depict edges (connections) that form amongst people who interacted with each other at least ten times. The thickness of the edges indicates the number of interactions between given users. Arrows indicate the direction of the interaction.


Key findings

Our analysis revealed a list of keywords most frequently used in conversations related to Change Management. On the below chart we filtered out the obvious "Change", "Management", "Organizational" and "#ChangeManagement" keywords in order to provide a more accurate picture of other relevant topics. The results demonstrated that innovation, culture and behavior are often mentioned together with Change Management.







A different approach to visualizing key topics related to Change Management.





Top Key Opinion Leaders in Change Management

In order to be considered a KOL in our mini research, users had to have more than 500 followers, and at least 10 tweets and over 10 incoming interactions during the analyzed time period. To calculate and determine the rankings of Key Opinion Leaders, we have taken into account their:

• number of incoming replies, mentions and retweets
• number of followers
• number of tweets

Based on our analysis, the final list of KOLs in the topic of Change Management is as follows:

1. @mikelehroza
2. @brunogebarski
3. @jasonlittle
4. @aharrell2000
5. @consultparagon
6. @innovate
7. @bizlibrary
8. @brainzooming
9. @malati_shinazy
10. @ms_mac4

As you can see, being an online influencer is not solely about the number of followers a user may have. Our top list includes Twitter accounts with as few as 820 followers all the way to 61,000.





Why influencer marketing is important

Great marketers know and engage their target audience's key influencers. Conducting an online community mapping analysis enables you to identify key opinion leaders who are really capable of getting through to the audience you want to engage, and the main topics that trigger and drive them. Value-driven influencer engagement will not only help strengthen your KOLs advocacy, but also prompt them to get involved in your communication campaigns.


For more information on online influencer identification, contact us at info@diktiolabs.com. 

How the HR Tech Europe conference went down on Twitter

HR Tech Europe, the self-proclaimed fastest growing HR event in Europe, took place on March 24-25 in London. The conference drew HR practitioners from far and wide to discover the latest trends in HR technology. Although we could not be there in body to showcase our cloud-based organizational diagnostic tool, OrgMapper, we wanted to show some spirit and decided to map the social activity around the event.



How we did this:

In order to map the structure of the online community around the conference, we tracked Twitter with our online community mapping suite, Diktio Labs, between 6 am, March 18, 2015 and 11:50 pm March 26, 2015, and looked into the network of all relevant interactions. We downloaded 11,013 tweets containing the hashtag #HRTechEurope.

Each node (blue dot) in the below network represents a Twitter account; the more influential a user is, the darker and larger its node will be. For a better visual experience, the network is filtered to only depict edges (connections) that form amongst people who retweeted each other at least three times. The thickness of the edges indicates the number of retweets; meaning, the thicker the edge, the more often a user retweeted another user. Arrows indicate the direction of the retweet: the head of the arrow points at the retweeted user.

Click here to enlarge

Our key findings:

@hrzone was the most retweeted user with 493 retweets, followed by @oraclehcm, @let_anita, @david_green_uk, @mervyndinnen, and @rohitbhosale. The network is well-connected, though @rohitbhosale and @emee_insights form almost a separate cluster but still connected via @violazoldy.

We also took a peek at the most trending hashtags, but excluded #HRTechEurope (which was used extensively throughout this period). We found that #HR was the most widely used hashtag, with 605 mentions within the community, followed by the hashtags #ngarh and #Gamification.

In 2015 online influencers can make or break a brand. Instead of concentrating on HOW MANY people are talking about your business, focus on WHO is in the middle of these discussions. Great marketers know and engage their social media influencers. Building close relationships with your influencers will not only help strengthen their advocacy, but also convince them to get involved in your communication campaigns.

For more information on online influencer identification, contact us at info@diktiolabs.com.

Maven7 Introduces Dedicated Brand for Community and Influencer Mapping

Diktio Labs aims to transform the marketing sector by bringing network science to the fingertips of all marketing professionals

Maven Seven Inc. (Maven7), one of the world's leading network research and data mining companies, has announced the introduction of Diktio Labs™, its new suite of online community and influencer mapping solutions.

Developed to empower marketing professionals by integrating network science into the campaign planning process, Diktio Labs is set to transform the digital marketing sector. For the first time, any proactive informational outreach campaign will have at its disposal a range of innovative and cost-effective planning tools driven by powerful network science.

Diktio Labs' data-driven approach stands in stark contrast to commonly used volume-based monitoring tools and methods. Traditional tools track campaign outputs, monitoring sentiment, conversations, trends and behavior. By contrast, Diktio Labs aims to map networks, hidden structures, relationships and both individual and group behavior across a range of client-specific criteria (issues, behavior, beliefs, preferences, patterns, etc.). Its algorithms and scrapers are tailor-made to each campaign, offering insight and intelligence to a level never before possible.

"Modern companies have to understand better how their customers seek out information online," said Chris Dobson, a seasoned communications agency manager who is driving Diktio Labs' to-market strategy.

"A huge amount of money is wasted through trial and error within digital and, indeed, traditional marketing, mostly completely unnecessarily. We now have the technology to identify communities of interest by a myriad of criteria and help transform any outreach campaign, be it political-, marketing- or social-based, in terms of insight and accuracy. Anyone in these areas not embracing network science now will soon be left behind."

A co-founder of Maven7 is the globally-acclaimed pioneer of network theory, Albert-László Barabási, based at Northeastern University in Boston. He also believes that the time has come for all marketing to take full advantage of network science: "We are constantly surrounded by hopelessly complex systems, from our society to computers and cell phones, to even the networks of the billions of neurons in our brains. These systems, although random looking at first, display endless signatures of order and self-organization, which can be understood, quantified, predicted, and eventually controlled. Show me a marketer that wouldn't want to take advantage of these advances to exploit that information."

Diktio Labs' products are available in almost all languages, and have already been used across over 15 countries, as diverse as Columbia, China, Mexico, Russia, Hungary, the UK and the US. Tailor-made algorithms specific to each client and project guarantee accuracy and relevance levels far beyond 'off the shelf' models.

About Maven7 
Maven7 supports business decisions by transforming large amounts of hard-to-interpret data into actionable business intelligence. Based on the methodologies of network analysis and data mining, Maven7 has developed its own proprietary network mapping tools to conduct analyses in organizational development, social media, the pharmaceutical/medical industries and many other fields.

About Diktio Labs 
Diktio Labs takes marketing to a whole new level of targeting and efficiency by enabling organizations to know exactly who will prove receptive, influential and responsive to their messaging prior to a campaign launch. Diktio Labs works directly with end-user clients and also partners with a number of marketing advisors and agencies to deliver its technology into a fully integrated campaign.

Connecting the Community

We all live in multiple on-line communities, but what do these communities look like? Where are we located in each of our communities, and what role do we play?

The diagram below shows an actual on-line community [OLC]. Every node in the network represents a person. A link between two nodes reveals a relationship or connection between two people in the community -- the social network. Most on-line communities consist of three social rings -- a densely connected core in the center, loosely connected fragments in the second ring, and an outer ring of disconnected nodes, commonly known as lurkers. Communities have various levels of belonging -- each represented by one of these rings. You may belong in the core of one community, while being a peripheral lurker in another.

In the above diagram, we see three distinct types of membership in our community -- designated by blue, green and red nodes. The proportion of nodes in each ring in this population is fairly typical of most on-line communities -- the isolates [lurkers] outnumber the highly-connected by a large ratio. The outer orbit in the network above contains the blue nodes. They have been attracted to the OLC, but have not connected yet. The blue nodes contain both brand new members, who have not connected yet, and passive members who have seen no reason to connect. The passive group is the most likely to leave the OLC, or remain as absorbers-only of the content in the community.

The green nodes have a few connections -- usually with prior acquaintances. They are not connected to the larger community -- only to a small, local group. They do not feel a sense of true membership in the larger whole, though they may identify with it. The small clusters of friendships amongst the greens can be maintained by other media and do not need this particular OLC to survive. They are also likely to leave or become passive and will likely do so in unison with the rest of their small circle of friends.

The inner core of the community is composed of red nodes [zoomed-in view below]. They are very involved in the community, and have formed a connected cluster of multiple overlapping ego networks. The leaders of the OLC are embedded in this core cluster. The core members will stay and build the community. Unfortunately they are in the minority. The core node consists of usually less than 10% of most on-line groups -- sometimes they are as few as 1% of the total OLC. Although small, they are a powerful force of attraction. It is the core that is committed and loyal to the OLC and will work on making it a success.

Online communities and social networks are often conceived and developed by businesses and organizations that focus on: "How can we use the online community to benefit us?" Focusing only on how to utilize the community, leads many organization to failure in building these communities! They fail at community development by not creating a strategy that makes sure their target audience is gaining a positive experience and practical benefits from participating in the community. It is amazing how many organizations try to build on-line social networks while ignoring the needs of the very people they are trying to attract and influence! It is then no surprise when large chunks of their target group leave when the "next big thing" comes around: SixDegrees-->Friendster-->Orkut-->MySpace-->Facebook-->Next? To build a vibrant and growing OLC, you need to support natural human behavior, not work against it. You need to think sociology, not just technology.

The field of social network analysis [SNA] gives us tools to both know the net and knit the net. SNA maps and measures the paths of information, ideas and influence in the community. SNA reveals the emergent patterns of interaction in organizations and communities and allows us to track their changes over time.Growing a community is not just adding new members. It requires adding both people and relationships -- nodes and links. Node counts are important in social networks, but it's the relationships -- and the patterns they create -- that are key! A community thrives by its connections, not by its collections! It's the relationships, and the prospect of future relationships, that keep members active and excited.

Source: http://orgnet.com/community.html

Social Media and the Power of Networks 2. – Key Opinion Leaders on Twitter

The increasing impact of social media gives modern marketing a lot to think about; Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, Pinterest, Google+ and hundreds of blogs are only the tip of the iceberg, and it seems impossible to be up-to-date on all the channels. To look at them one by one seems illogical, since the key aspect of the generated content lays in the network effect, that enables the vast exchange of information. What remains to be done? This three-part series introduces Maven7’s newest research focusing on the network effect, and therefore making life easier for online marketing, PR, and product management experts.

In contrast to the Facebook-boom that began 2-3 years ago, and reached it’s 3 million user population in Hungary last year, the Twitter community seems to be growing at a slower pace. The Twitter company was launched in 2006 in San Franscisco, and has around 30 thousand Hungarian visitors a day, similar to the blog hosting site Tumblr.

Why bother with them at all – you may ask? The majority of Twitter and Tumblr users come from an urban environment, most of them are high-status people living in Budapest. Microblogs spread information – especially negative ones – very fast. Here is a comparison: a „tradiotional” online medium might be busy with a story for a whole week, whereas on Twitter – given that the right person spreads it – the same information is distributed within 2.5 hours! Therefore it is of great importance, to keep these outlets under control as much as possible. It is not a coincidence, that Hollywood celebrities like Charlie Sheen (with his 7.5  million followers) get paid around 50thousand dollars per tweet. Our survey conducted during Spanish election season showed that even an average person can have substantial effect on voters. This leaves no second thoughts about monitoring the information that gets to these loyal, high presitge consumers.

National key opinion leaders (famous journalists, bloggers, athletes) are active on multiple scial media platforms, but the small number of follower bases point to the fact, that the person with the most followers is not neccesary the most influental one, when it comes to information distribution. We need to find out, which tweeter is the most relevant one, and has the power to form opinions when it comes to our products. We can achive this through Twitter data using the methods of data mining. The user’s position in the network is another key factor (i.e. how many followers does the user have in common with our competing brand). Compared to Twitter, Facebook has open activity data, which means that we can easily access information regarding the users network of contacts.

Social Media and the Power of Networks 2. – Key Opinion Leaders

There are multiple ways we can build networks from the connections of Twitter users. First of all we can regard the distributors (people related to the brand,  or the brand’s official page) as the source of information, and link individual users to them, based on who retweeted the source’s message. Furthermore, the users themselves have followers and friends online, the latter one representing a stronger status, that can be interpreted as a network itself (for more, check our previous article on a follower- andfriend-based network). The picture shows a network of retweeted messages related to an FMCG product distributor and its competitors.

Social Media and the Power of Networks 2. – Key Opinion Leaders on Twitter pic 2.

The second picture represents the choice between data sources, that have the most influence on our consumer basis. The yellow boxes are the key opinion leaders(KOLs), who can reach out to the major part of the community in only three steps. They hold a central position in the network, because they have the biggest follower- and friendbasis.

Through analysis of Twitter data we can not only locate the key opinion leaders and characters of a brand, but with the help of location information we can also interpret product placement related research. A good example of using location data is our previous article on the optimallocalization af ATMs. 

To be continued.

Can Social Media Become the Saviour of Democracy ?

An article in Nature claims to have proven the  direct impact of  social media on political activity. Researchers at the University of Carolina along with people from Facebook run a gigantic experiment.

On Nov. 2, 2010, the day of the nationwide Congressional elections, nearly every Facebook member who signed on — 61 million in all — received a nonpartisan “get out the vote” message at the top of the site’s news feed. It included a reminder that “today is Election Day”; a link to local polling places; an option to click an “I Voted” button, with a counter displaying the total number of Facebook users who had reported voting; and as many as six pictures of the member’s friends who had reported voting. The results: 340,000 additional votes nationwide! Pretty amazing, but how can we be sure these people would not have voted by themselves?

Two randomly chosen control groups, of 600,000 Facebook members each, did not receive the pictures. One group received just the “get out the vote” message; the other received no voting message at all.By examining public voter rolls, the researchers were able to compare actual turnout among the groups. They determined that the message showing friends who had voted was directly responsible for 60,000 more votes nationwide and indirectly responsible for 280,000 that were spurred by friends of friends — what they called “social contagion” effect.

Significantly if not surprisingly, the voting study showed that patterns of influence were much more likely to be demonstrated among close friends, suggesting that “strong ties” in cyberspace are more likely than “weak ties” to influence behavior. It also found an indirect impact from the messages: friends of friends were influenced as well.

Fun fact, they also discovered that about 4 percent of those who claimed they had voted were not telling the truth.Because only about 1 percent of Facebook users openly state their political orientation, the researchers said they could not determine whether political leanings had any influence on social networking and voting behavior.Past studies have shown that a variety of methods for mobilizing potential voters have a disappointing effect. Knocking on doors is the most effective technique; e-mail is one of the least.

CNN's War On Cyber Terrorism - A Fictional Drama Set in the Situation Room

In February 2010 the cable network ran a live simulation under the name 'We Were Warned - Cyber Shockwave", where Wolf Blitzer guided viewers through a fictional scenario of digital terrorism.

To avoid a War Of the Worlds-like panic, CNN made it very clear, that is was only a product of fiction; but how far were they from the truth? A situation like this could easily happen tomorrow: a Russian computer infects smarthphones via the application 'March Madness', and the virus goes viral within a few hours. Soon it shuts down communication channels, power networks, and due to the blackouts, telecommunication and traffic get shut down as well. Hospitals have only 12 hours left on their backup generators, and the governments hands are tied, the president has no other choice but to declare martial law.

You can watch the whole show on YouTube, or read the transcript on the CNN homepage.

What CNN is trying to reenact, is the 'War Room', reserved for the President of The United States, that comes with a bunch of military personel and a group of advisers (probably a red phone too), for situations involving national security and requiring military action. The most infamous depiction of this roundtable was in Stanley Kubrick's Dr.Strangelove, accompanied by a brilliant performance of Peter Sellers. Entertainment however, was not the only goal of CNN, since their team included experts like the former director of the CIA General Michael Hayden among other high ranking security experts and former advisers.

The event was organised by the Bipartisan Policy Center, but the meaning behind it goes further than politics.  We have reported earlier, that closely linked systems, like the world food trade network, can serve as transmitters for certain viruses, causing a rapid failure of the whole system. Take any countries online network, and you get the same result. One computer is enough to infect and eventually take down the whole system. In 2010 researchers from Boston published a paper in the scientific journal Nature, that pointed out the Achilles heal of strongly interconnected networks. The failure of one point in the system can take down all the others, so the bigger the network is, the more vulnerable it gets.

Hooked already? Read on about the networks of networks on ScienceNews!