Network Visualization by Linkdex – See Your Social Circles

Are you a search marketer or PR professional? Then you know the importance of understanding your social circles. You want to know influencers, who they are and to whom they are connected. You surely want to know who links to them and what they’ve been doing on Twitter, for example. You probably have tools and lists and more lists to keep up with all this data. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a network visualization tool that let you see these social circles? Linkdex launched a new product that enables you to do just that! Search Engine Journal readers are the first to read about this nifty product.

Marketers can now visualize connections between authors and their network to see who is passionate about any topic in any niche with Linkdex’s new offering. Take a look at the visualization of an authority in the search marketing space, Matt McGee, Executive News Editor at Marketing Land.

Linkdex Network Visualization of Matt McGee

You see Matt’s bio, linking domains, active social networks, recent tweets, and the authority (represented by the size of the circles) of those who interact with and are connected to him. (Don’t you just want to take your mouse and play with those little planets? You can, but I digress…) You can see that Matt has some pretty big names in his network. What if you didn’t know him? This would help you to “work your way to him” through his connections.

I spoke with Matt Roberts, co-founder of Linkdex and VP of Product, at SMX West and had a chance to ask him a few questions to understand how visually seeing (playing with) an author’s social circles can help search marketers and PR professionals.

Matt Roberts, Linkdex Co-Founder, Demonstrates Social Circles

How can social circles identify authorities and influencers?

There are two parts to finding the influencers.

1. Finding them is first. Linkdex calls on a number of data sources to find passionate authors, whether it be on a narrow topic or finding authorities on Twitter.
2. Breaking the mind-set that you have “an equal chance of influencing all the people we identify” is second. Reality is you don’t always have that chance! You need to plan your best path into a network. The ability to visualize relationships between people becomes a value for you. Identifying where you are in relation to that network and the people you know who exist in it enables you to identify those closest to you. You can then develop an effective “influencer strategy.”

What are the sources for this network visualization tool?

Network visuals (those linked social circles) combine a wide range of data to provide amazing insights from multiple sources.

• Authorship data includes profiles of where authors write, where their social profile pages are, and their awareness of a brand or competitors in a market.
• Network data is primarily taken from Twitter to create potentially lots of social circles.
• Contact data comes from our contact book and outreach modules.

What can marketers glean from this information?

Networks allow you to pinpoint where the influencers are and who’s contagious. In other words, you want those who, when infected with an idea, will spread it far and wide. You can discover strong bonds between people – who talks to whom the most often, and in which direction conversations flow.

Marketers can see the people they should target by visualizing it dynamically in a way not possible in a list, even in a sorted list.

You can also determine where to put your energies so you don’t go out of your way to try and influence the wrong people. You may realize that people you thought were important really don’t have that much authority.

If you had 10 seconds to summarize the value of this visual approach, what would that be?

We see this visualization as a building block to evolving how we help PR and social media marketers deliver better ROI. I really think the days of outreach lists created without understanding the network are numbered.

What if a marketer is interested in your Network Visualization offering as a stand-alone product. Is that option available?

The authorship and network visualization functionality is an expansion of our Social Circles module. We have PR agencies using this as a stand-alone area. I suspect they’ll want content and performance tracking aspects as their industries evolve though.

Nice! This is new and not yet on your website. How can people learn more?

Linkdex will be demonstrating the network visualization tool at SES New York from March 26-27, 2013 in booth 410.

If a reader will not be attending SES NY, they can sign up for a free demo. We’ll also be providing a webinar in April.

Thank you, Matt, for your time!

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OK, readers. Here is my disclaimer. I have no connection to Linkdex. I was simply perusing the SMX West Expo floor taking pictures. After playing with the social circles, I thought readers who are search marketers and PR professionals would want to know more and have a chance to play as well. Feel free to drop your thoughts and questions in the comments.