Network Analysis

A powerful insight tool to understand the influential voices in your network

Curtis Farnham avatar
Written by Curtis Farnham
Updated over a week ago

The Network Analysis widget section reveals conversation and mention patterns between the most central Twitter profiles of a community or healthcare topic.

The two main elements of the chart are nodes and edges:

  • Nodes (the circles in the chart) represent Twitter profiles in a community and are initially color-coded by its assigned stakeholder category color if any. 

  • The size of the node is also significant as it represents the size of the profile's influence within this community.

  • Edges (the lines that connect the nodes) represent the communication between the two connected nodes, with the arrow indicating the primary direction of the communication.

  • The edge type could either be a reply, a mention, a retweet, or a quote tweet. The edges are also distinguished by their thickness; thicker edges indicate more communication between the two profiles (or nodes).

As with the other widget sections, the Network Analysis chart can be filtered to display nodes and edges of the stakeholder(s) selected from the stakeholder menu. Click once to choose a stakeholder, and click again to deselect it.


Display Options

  • Zoom in and out of the chart using the magnifying glass icons in the toolbar above.

  • Click on the arrow icon on the left to return the chart to the original size. 

  • Click and drag the canvas to move the entire network graph.  

  • Click and drag a node on the chart to a new location on the canvas to create more separation.

  • Hover over any node to view its direct neighbors (nodes and edges) in the network chart.

  • Click on any node to open a pop-up with additional details of the Twitter profile with options to view its Healthcare Social Graph page, Transcript, or Interactions.


Profile

Click on the icon to display the Profiles options.

Max number of profiles to display - Changes the maximum number of profiles to display. Default is 100, and the range is from 20 to 500.

Show profiles - Filters (or hides) nodes on the graph by size—default to all.

Profile labels - Controls whether the name or username is displayed and the number of profile labels to display on the graph by size—defaults to most.

Show links - Filters (or hides) the links between the nodes on the graph by thickness. Defaults to all.

Graph layout options - Select different chart formats.


Communities

Click on the "Communities" tab to display the Community options.

  • When clicking on the "Community detection" option, the Louvain algorithm is used to detect communities in the network chart.

  • Turning on the community detection, each community will be assigned a color. The table above lists all the communities from the largest to the smallest with their assigned color, the name of the most influential profile of that community, and the size of the community.

  • Switch to a different color set by clicking on the "Randomize colors" button until you find a preferable color.

  • Hover over any row in the table to highlight the selected community on the network graph.


Data

Click on the "Data" tab to display the Data options.

Tweet type

  • All - The connection is either a mention, a reply, or a quote tweet.

  • Mentions - Only mentions between accounts are drawn.

  • Replies - Only replies between accounts are drawn.

  • Quote Tweets - Only quote tweets between accounts are drawn.

Tweet direction

  • All - Connections are all unidirectional, with the arrowhead showing the direction of the connection.

  • Bidirectional - Displays connections where both users are mutually mentioned, replied, and/or quoted each other.

Rank by

  • SymplurRank - The nodes use our SymplurRank algorithm to return the most influential profiles for the given dataset; we have found this to be more effective at filtering out retweet bots, spam accounts, and interactions that may not be relevant.

  • Count - Does not use our SymplurRank algorithm but simply the tweet count as a criterion for returning influential profiles.

Node Magnitudes: If Rank By is SymplurRank, then the Node Magnitude numbers equals the SymplurRank algorithm's outputs. If Rank By is Count, then Node Magnitude is the number of edges that are connected to the node.


Widget Options

The icons in the upper right corner of the section provide several additional options.

Add Notes: You can add notes for this specific widget section to display for yourself or other team members.

Table - The table icon changes the display to an Excel-like table. Click on the icon a second time to change the display back to the original format.

Export as CSV - Download this section into an Excel table file.

Export as GEXF - Download this section as a GEXF file.

Note: You must have the appropriate software to download this format.

Read Help Article - The associated help article will open in a new browser tab.

API Query - The code for the associated API query will display in a pop-up box.

Refresh - The section data will refresh.

Remove - This widget section will be hidden and removed from the dashboard. To view this widget section again, scroll to the bottom of the entire dashboard and click on the icon associated with this widget.

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