Learning outcomes:
Understand the purpose of the Influencer Network Graph
Learn how to interpret the graph to identify highly-connected individuals
Discover how to use the graph to gain insights into the spread of subjects, ideas and content
What is the Influencer Network?
The Network subpage within TRAC contains our "Influencer Network Graph". This is a powerful visual that allows you to map the way people engage with each other across any data source that has an engagement relationship between two or multiple authors. By using this graph, you can understand who is reacting to whom and therefore who is central to spreading a certain subject, idea, or content.
With this in mind, how can you use the "Influencer Network Graph" to gain insights into highly-connected individuals and their influence? So let's take a closer look.
The network graph logic is as follows:
The greater the number of engagements the author at the centre of the graph generates, the more influence that person has.
Each node represents an author and we shorten or lengthen the edges based on the weight of the specific node (i.e.) number of engagements generated.
It's important to understand that the graph is made up of nodes and connections. The nodes represent individual authors, while the lines represent the engagement relationship between them. The size and colour of the nodes are based on the number of reactions that the author generates, with larger nodes indicating more reactions.
✍️ Note: It's also worth knowing that the network graph is not cached but updated as new data comes in and any filter applied to the dataset will be reflected in the network graph visualisation (e.g filtering by keywords in the text or keywords in the bio of the audience will show a graph where the users have posted about those keywords or have those keywords in their own bios).
To identify highly-connected individuals, you need to look for nodes that have a high number of collections (i.e. connected lines). These highly-connected nodes are often located in the centre of the clusters. By focusing on these particular groups within the network you can gain insights into who the heavy-hitters are when spreading a certain subject, idea or content.
💡 Top Tip: You can view these highly-connected individuals and the posts that they're contributing to the conversation by clicking on the nodes, like in the screen recording below.
Furthermore, the Influencer Network Graph enables you to gain a better understanding of the spread of subjects, ideas and content. By identifying the highly-connected individuals, you can see how the information flows from one person to another and gain insights into the patterns of communication around the online conversations that you're analysing.
Finally, you can export this graph as an PNG File, XLS, or SVG file. As is the case with most visuals within TRAC, you will find the export option on the top-right of the Network Graph.
