Analysis Of Characteristics Of Opinion Leaders In Word-of-Mouth Propagation Networks

With the rapid development of e-commerce, more and more consumers are glad to shopping online. However, how to choose the right products has become an urgent problem to be solved because of massive information. As a main way to learn the products and service, word-of-mouth (WOM) propagation has a great impact on consumers’decision making. Opinion leaders always have larger influence, since consumers are more likely to adopt the opinion of opinion leaders. In this context, it will be very helpful if we could know how to utilize opinion leaders in WOM propagation. As a result, consumers can be guided to conduct right consumption, and companies can expand their popularity and achieve profit as well.Opinion leaders frequently provide consumers with their opinions through the WOM propagation, and then they are approved by others gradually, which leads to the high influence ultimately. In this thesis, we focus on opinion leaders and pay attention to the relationships between their influence and individual characteristics. Firstly, we describe the formation of opinion leaders in the network environment. Secondly, we analyze two main individual characteristics of opinion leaders, namely authority and sociality. Thirdly, based on the mechanism of WOM propagation and cascade propagation, we put forward the opinion propagation model for different situations. In our model, there are three propagation modes and different rules are designed accordingly. They are the multi-influence propagation mode, the indirect propagation mode, and the direct propagation mode. At last, in the WOM propagation network, opinion leaders are chosen by the value of their influence, and their characteristics are studied.The results show that the WOM propagation network generated by our opinion propagation model has the scale-free feature. Opinion leaders take the key positions in the network. In single-opinion propagation situation, individuals with high level of authority and sociality tend to gain the high influence. Compared with the new opinion leaders, seed opinion leaders have the higher influence and a wider propagation range. In multi-opinion propagation situation, the distribution of opinion leaders would be centralized or scattered in the WOM propagation network. They always have the high level of authority. In addition, there are differences about the quantity of opinion leaders indifferent situations. In this thesis, we have studied the WOM propagation process and different opinion propagation situations. Our research aims to identify opinion leaders through their structural characteristics and individual characteristics in the generated WOM propagation network. We hope that our finding could provide an effective way to make better utilization of opinion leaders in the WOM propagation.