Social Networks and Success

Social networks can affect individual and group success because of the way information flows through the network and because of the social relationships embedded in the edges of the graph. However, studies of “influentials” and social capital that attempt to identify the role of network position on success have had limited use of or access to the relevant social network data. In this talk I will present three studies that examine the relationship between networks and success. In the first study, we try to identify “influencers” in the Twitter network, and consider a new way of approaching the problem of maximizing influence. In the second study, we show that different network structures affect group success, but importantly find an interaction between the kind of problem and the network structure. In the third study, we consider three different domains and three different measures of success, and find that the particular network positions that are most related to success, and how strongly related they are to success, differ between domains. I will also briefly discuss a project in progress that will simultaneously examine the effect of network position and structure on individual and group success.