WELL-DEFINED APPROACHES FOR IDENTIFYING INFLUENTIAL NODES IN A SOCIAL NETWORK

Social networks often serve as a medium for spreading information, ideas or innovations. An individual's decision on buying a product or innovation will be highly dependent on the choices made by the individual's peers or neighbors in the social network. Social networks contain graphs of individuals and their relationships, collaborations, or advice seeking relationships. The member or a node that has a large number of contacts with other nodes is referred as an information hub or influential node. Although members have numerous connections, only a fraction of those so called friends may actually influence others. The influential node plays a vital role in diffusing information, including propaganda, ideology, and gossip in a social network. This paper focuses on approaches for finding influential nodes in social network