They have developed a new framework to study the phenomenon in more detail, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Researchers have created a framework that distinguishes between people who behave similarly because of peer influence or because they seek out friends with similar behaviors and beliefs. This is an important distinction for the work of public health and marketing agencies, which aim to target communications and influence behaviour.
Yan Ling, an assistant professor at the McCombs School of Business, and his colleagues have also developed a new tool that marketers can use to identify influencers: highly connected people who can start a phone chain.
The study was published online in the Journal of Information Systems Research .
With Xiaowen Dong of the University of Oxford, Esteban Moro of the University of Madrid and Alex Pentland of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Leng tested a framework for cellular data collected in a small European country with a single cellular operator . Telephony influences people's decision to attend a cultural event.
The framework consists of three phases:
- First, identify the people involved in the behavior.
- Use cellular data to create contact chains or graphs of people who have direct phone calls or indirect contacts with first responders.
- Collect information about: a) the websites people visit, b) whether their friends accept the behavior as a result, and c) people's social network characteristics, e.g. B. how connected they are to their networks.
People who had direct telephone contact with early event attendees were 87.61 percent more likely to attend the event later than those who did not receive a call from the contact. At two levels away from the first recipient (friends of friends), they were 68.65% more likely to be there when a call came in.
This effect persisted across four degrees of separation, showing that even indirectly linking to a past presence through a communication network increases the likelihood of future involvement. Third-level contacts are reported to be 53% more likely to participate in the show, and fourth-level contacts are 47% more likely to participate in the show.
While the researchers did not know the context details of the phone calls, they assumed that communications within 24 hours of the event would be performance calls.
"If people don't talk about the event, our estimate is an underestimate," Ling said. "Our findings on the long-term effects of social influence still hold."
The researchers used their findings to develop a new tool called 'Influence Centrality', which shows which people spread the most information. This is important information that can be used for targeted marketing, as it can help companies and government agencies promote new products and behaviors. Companies with a new product they want to adopt can also benefit from the framework and tool. For example, companies that send product samples to influencers would do well to know who is most effective at getting the message across. Overall, the research shows that despite the dominance of social media, phones are still important to marketers.
"Telephony is still a very important channel for researchers to study," said Ling.
