Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties

by Bill Ives

March 17, 2010 at 3:54 am · Filed under FASTforward'09

Eric Gilbert and Karrie Karahalios at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently published an interesting paper on Predicting Tie Strength With Social Media. Building on the theoretical work on strong and weak ties started by the classic Mark Granovetter 1973 paper “The Strength of Weak Ties,” they looked at whether social media behavior could be used as a predictor of tie strength. In this paper the researchers present a predictive model that maps social media data to tie strength. The model builds on a dataset of over 2,000 Facebook relationships and distinguishes between strong and weak ties with over 85% accuracy.

They asked 35 people to rate a number of their Facebook friends that were randomly selected.  Then they looked at the Facebook behavior of these people to see if could accurate predict the strength of their ties as reported by the participants. Dimensions such as the use of words associated with intimacy and intensity, duration of communication, social distance, and other factors were looked at for their predictive power. The complete set of variables was combined to form the predictive model that worked in 85% of the instances.

I am sure that the researchers would be the first to agree that more work needs to be done. As a former researcher I can see many potential confounding variable but, at the same time, the work looks promising.  They offer some practical applications. For example, a “system that prioritizes via tie strength, or allows users to tune parameters that incorporate tie strength, might provide more useful, timely and enjoyable activity streams.”

This is especially true as many people are building friends or followers that number in the hundreds, if not thousands. This would also apply within the enterprise as the use of social media within the firewall continues to grow. As this approach gets validated through more research it could be translated into an application feature.

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19 Comments »

ffblogMarch 17th, 2010 at 3:56 am

New: : Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/cUwcX7

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SEOSpyMarch 17th, 2010 at 3:58 am

RT @ffblog: Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/a4yyyr

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social_medioMarch 17th, 2010 at 4:03 am

Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/aRXQS7

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mostashMarch 17th, 2010 at 4:03 am

Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/aFuiRz

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RolotecMarch 17th, 2010 at 4:42 am

“Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties”, FASTForward Blog / @BillIves http://bit.ly/aaEdrF

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emcconne_readsMarch 17th, 2010 at 4:47 am

Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties: Eric Gilbert and Karrie Karahalios at the Unive… http://tinyurl.com/yjjpcdz

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SocialSteveMarch 17th, 2010 at 5:51 am

Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/ddLdmE

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ChrisManet22March 17th, 2010 at 7:31 am

fast forward.. Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://ow.ly/16PecS

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BillIvesMarch 17th, 2010 at 8:07 am

post on Using Social Media to Predict Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/aOUPKp

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JamieMarslandMarch 17th, 2010 at 8:37 am

Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties
http://is.gd/aLTVb

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PeterBrettonMarch 17th, 2010 at 9:07 am

Interesting article on predicting strong and weak ties in social media – http://ow.ly/1nlEo

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NoMeatballsMarch 17th, 2010 at 11:22 am

Study aims to use social media to determine the strength of personal ties | http://bit.ly/aOUPKp

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oleandrosMarch 17th, 2010 at 7:42 pm

Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://ff.im/-hHrv0

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christianrenardMarch 18th, 2010 at 2:20 am

Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/ddheDw /cc @feedly

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ffblogMarch 18th, 2010 at 9:55 am

New: : Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://bit.ly/cUwcX7

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hebsgaardMarch 18th, 2010 at 1:46 pm

Using #SocialMedia to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties http://tinyurl.com/yjjpcdz

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DrChoc0late2March 21st, 2010 at 3:39 am

http://twitpic.com/19z6hv – 5 star?

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HerkensMarch 23rd, 2010 at 4:17 am

@BillIves on “Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties” http://bit.ly/aaEdrF – Would not work for me! #e20

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rlavigne42March 23rd, 2010 at 4:31 pm

@BillIves on “Using Social Media to Predict the Strength of Personal Ties” http://bit.ly/aaEdrF

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