Network Analysis is an innovative methodology, used
already by Sociologists, Economists and social scientists, which can be
tailored for either qualitative or quantitative analyses, in order to
understand and influence consumer behavior. Like the name suggests, the main
tenet of Network Analysis is that relationships at large tend be organized in
the form of a Network.
Some basic characteristics of Networks are:
- They are structures made up of elements called actors; and a person, a technology and a company would all be actors under this perspective.
- They are organizational models (of people, objects and technologies) that are not hierarchical, which means that flows of information are horizontal or can include bottom-down or down-upwards strategies.
- They are based on the quality or intensity of relationships: they explain why relationships exist and how they exist, rather than presupposing that they already follow a certain logic or purpose.
- They allow you to capture, from a strategic perspective, the role that different players have within particular networks: this means, for instance, being able to distinguish between the behavior of users that engage your social media against those who do not or between regular customers’ behavior and the behavior of occasional ones.
- They are dynamic and not static: unlike static structures, networks allow for the strategist to understand the dynamics behind role changes within any particular network: actors change roles through time, occupying different positions within the same network. This is central to analyze things like market trends and dominance, as well as, consumer experience of products with improved features.
- They are embedded structures: this means that a network can in principle couple with other networks and can itself be made out of other networks. There is no hierarchy that would presume that human actors are the center of networks, but they allow marketing strategies to build networks that place ideal customers, for instance, at the center of a network of consumer experience.
What are the advantages
of using network analysis?
From the perspective of networks, relationships are
the core of your marketing. With relationships at their core, common marketing
themes can be reconfigured or enhanced—Network Analysis gives you a critical
perspective on the limitations of traditional approaches, while allowing you to
benefit from the advantages that result from network analysis.
The best way to grasp the benefits of this strategic
approach is to take a closer look at the way it can impact three common
strategic areas in marketing and branding:
Customer
experience: instead of seeing customers as the only relevant
actor, network analysis enables you to understand products, websites, social
media channels, etc., as playing an active role in customer experience. Keep in
mind that everything about any actor is defined through the relationships it
has, which means that customer experience can, in fact, be seen as a network in
itself, bring distinct elements together; each element relating to one another
in ways that define its range of movement or behavior.
Content systems
and channel integration: each channel has a unique objective, but also a
shared one, with your company’s broader marketing objectives—this is what is
commonly referred to as integration: consumers build unique relationships with
your company through each communication channel you use (from Facebook to
Email, to points of sales), which is why a systematic approach is needed to
integrate all such efforts. Network analysis allows you to evaluate, both, the
quality of your integration and the effective streamlining of your content
systems, because it enables your to focus on the type and quality of the relationships
that determine engagement and their contribution to your business’ broader
objectives.
Brand identity: having a customer-oriented
branding strategy means that the purpose of your brand is to add value to
people's lives; this is also how you want your brand to be perceived and in
this sense your offering is to an extent a continuation of your brand’s
promise. Values and meaning do not live in words or slogans, but are the result
of relationships or structures of meaning. The emotional content of a story is,
for instance, often reduced to a matter of empathy. A better approach would be instead
to view your brand’s identity as a network: this allows you to understand how
similar emotional content can live in different contexts (places, events,
channels) and to understand the relationships between such contexts, as well,
as the distinctive role actors play in each. In this sense, your brand’s
message becomes a network too: it becomes all about networks of values and
meanings, which are shared collectively, but which may also entail differences
or gradations, which are not easy to grasp from a cultural or linguistic
perspective. Once you begin to see things from the standpoint of relationships,
then each value embraced by your company is necessarily linked to others and
each emotional response becomes part of a shared event, which allows for
individuals to play a role—it allows individuals to internalize your brand’s
aspirations, thus transforming a slogan into a personal story.
Do you want to know more about how you can apply
Network Analysis to your company’s strategic branding? Then make sure to stay
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By Daniel Vargas Gómez
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