Efficient combinations of dual incentives on social networks to achieve viral spread

Abstract

The high penetration of online communication in social networks provides a perfect context for launching a viral marketing campaign. Viral marketing strategies with adoption and promotion incentives are applied by companies for acquiring customers and occupying the market rapidly. In this paper, motivational thresholds and the SAN diffusion model are introduced to describe the massage diffusion process. Diffusion thresholds of dual incentives under homogeneous and heterogeneous networks are both deduced. We compare different effects of adoption and promotion incentives on marketing performances including the final penetration and the diffusion speed with numerical simulation. Simulation results show not only a greater influence of promotion incentives than adoption but also the necessity of adoption incentives for higher penetration. Besides, simulation results also show different diffusion characteristics between homogeneous and heterogenous networks, which provide management implications for selecting target customers with different network structures.