Information cascade at group scale

Abstract

Identifying the k most influential individuals in a social network is a well-studied problem. The objective is to detect k individuals in a (social) network who will influence the maximum number of people, if they are independently convinced of adopting a new strategy (product, idea, etc). There are cases in real life, however, where we aim to instigate groups instead of individuals to trigger network diffusion. Such cases abound, e.g., billboards, TV commercials and newspaper ads are utilized extensively to boost the popularity and raise awareness.