Some important PR crises could be averted and important opportunities could be uncovered and acted upon earlier. If we could adapt the same algorithmic approach to social listening, we could get a similar head start on outbreaks of sentiment.

They found that they could get gain a full two weeks and lower the inoculation threshold from 90% to 30%. In a study of 744 Harvard undergraduates, they we able to isolate a network central group that predicted the outbreak of the H1N1 influenza virus on campus in 2009. Wouldn’t be great if we could find a way get a head start? That’s a question that was tackled by Christakis and Fowler, leaders in the field of social network science. The time for crises prevention has passed and you move straight into full-fledged crises management. The infection has taken hold in a sizable proportion of the population and is spreading at geometric rates. Here are three areas where insights from the scientific community can be directly applied.Įpidemics are difficult to control because by the time you know you have one, it’s usually too late. It has changed the way we combat terrorism, study ecologies, fight disease and even evaluate organizations, but has yet to carry over to ad agencies and marketing organizations. Since the late ‘90’s the science of social networks has been an intense field of study. In an industry obsessed with metrics, that seems like quite an oversight.

Strangely enough, social network analysis has largely been ignored. Facebook is worth nearly $100 billion and social listening and community assignments have become lucrative sources of ad agency fees. What once was vaguely referred to as “word of mouth” is now a huge business.

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