The largest social network in the world has patented tech to identify those whose influence is the most powerful.
Facebook is always looking for a new way to monetize, particularly when it comes to the lucrative area of social media marketing, and now it has started in yet another direction as it has patented technology that will allow it to spot the top “influencers” among its users.
This is all a part of Facebook’s broader strategy to keep ahead of what its users want while they use the site or apps.
Once it has determined what its users are into at any given time, then the next phase of its social media marketing strategy is to discover those people who will purchase such a user base. It can therefore successfully market content that its users will be able to discover and share. The outcome is that groups of consumers are formed for interested marketers to be able to target. The big data analysis at Facebook has given the company the ability to identify the individual users who are most responsible for creating the largest responses in a group; the “influencer”.
The company has now patented the codes necessary to discover the influencers who give social media marketing the most potential.
The patent for this marketing technology was first filed in 2011by the head of Ads at Facebook Inc, Andrew Bosworth. The company was able to obtain the patent only a week later. It is somewhat similar to other patents that are held by other industry giants such as Microsoft Corporation, Yahoo! Inc., and Google Inc. According to many analysts, the Facebook patent is especially ingenious for “Influencer Marketing”.
The marketing code from Facebook differs from that of other giants in that it provides a highly simplified method of spotting the celebrity influencers. The analogy from the company is that it finds the “expert”, first. That account will then encourage a share from the influential celebrity, creating a number of follower sharing explosions that are quite strong in themselves. The competition’s social media marketing strategy is more focused on the size of an influencer’s connections or the strength of that influencer’s followers.
