The Missing link

Welcome to Dimension 5 of social network analysis

It’s one thing having a perspective of the social network you interact with. It’s quite another hypothesizing about other social networks with whom your network interacts.

Mobile Telecom providers or banks for example, can work from the large amount of diversified data that is taken in from the call (or transaction) information provided by its customers. But, they have only a partial view of the competition’s call network; that which is generated by the communication between customers of both networks.

To successfully attract the competition’s users, solidify current loyalty and avoid defection from within your own customer base, you want to be able to look at the activity and communication that occurs along the “adjacent border” of both networks. Look at your customers who have a large part of their social circle ‘off-net’. Consider those ‘off-net’ customers just on the other side of the network border. These people are strongly connected to your customers and should be easier to acquire.

Targeting them properly demands a broad awareness of their profiles and behaviors. The thing is that those ‘off-net’ potential customers also have social networks further afield about which you think you apparently know nothing, but which would tell you a lot about your target. You have a missing link.

The beauty of Network Completion is just this: Using intelligent algorithms and up-to-date industry experience, work with what you know about the ‘known network’ and start completing the missing links by extrapolating the information you do have to create the ‘most probable’ complete network. Develop significant and far-reaching Insights from this broader Social Network Analysis that will positively impact churn and acquisition decisions. This will ensure that your actions are far more accurately focused and effective.