Optimal influence strategies in social networks

Christos Bilanakos, Dionisios N. Sotiropoulos, Ifigeneia Georgoula, George M. Giaglis

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

    Abstract

    This article suggests a modeling framework to investigate the optimal strategy followed by a monopolistic firm to manipulate the process of opinion formation in a social network. We consider a network which consists of the monopolist and a set of consumers who communicate to form their beliefs about the underlying product quality. When consumers' initial beliefs are uniform, we analytically and numerically show that the firm's optimal influence strategy always involves targeting the most influential consumer. We characterize the optimal amount of resources that should be allocated by the firm to this kind of manipulative activity. For the case of non-uniform initial beliefs, we rely on numerical methods to show that the monopolist might have an incentive to target the least influential consumer if the latter's initial opinion is low enough. The equilibrium valuation of the good and the firm's profitability are minimized when consumers' limiting influences on the consensus belief are equal, implying that the monopolist benefits from the presence of consumers with divergent strategic locations in the network.

    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2015 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2015
    PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
    Pages856-863
    Number of pages8
    ISBN (Electronic)9781450338547
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 25 Aug 2015
    EventIEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2015 - Paris, France
    Duration: 25 Aug 201528 Aug 2015

    Other

    OtherIEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining, ASONAM 2015
    Country/TerritoryFrance
    CityParis
    Period25/08/1528/08/15

    Keywords

    • Influence strategy
    • Monopoly
    • Opinion formation
    • Social network

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