An Analytical Way to Find Influencers on Social Networks and Validate their Effects in Disseminating Social Games

As the weight of online social networks (OSNs) which provide powerful means of sharing common interests and communicating has gradually grown up, influencers are also given the great attention. This research proposes and evaluates a methodology for discovering influencers within OSNs. Finding strong influencers out is momentous perspective in success of viral marketing. The methodology consists of two-step process. In step one, structural analysis, we extract the influencer candidate subgroup by the degree centrality computation based on the social graph. Next, we analyze each userpsilas activity history. After whole process, we finally obtain a few powerful influencers who can effectively affect other people than mediocrities. The positive effects of influencers are confirmed by analyzing the result of spreading social games out over Facebook. The results are compared with other game promotions without utilizing influencers. This methodology can be used in various marketing practices on social platforms.