Examination of ‘Interests’ and ‘Activities’ of Social Network users

Abstract

The present study relates to the analysis of attribute data related to users of the social network VK. The general population N = 52,614 users is the intersection of audiences from two communities for social media marketing. Based on the collected statistics on the “interests” attribute, one can compile a generalized portrait of an IT specialist and online marketer: this is a man aged about 30 years old, not married, or who defines his family status as “everything is complicated”. He speaks an average of two languages, works for an organization, or studies at a university. He has about 370 followers on VK. The result based on the data from the field 'activities' is very close to the data from the field 'interests', and gives a similar picture of the generalized portrait of a specialist. As part of the study, the authors have learned how to segment users into the users that identify themselves as ‘IT specialists or online marketers’, and ‘other’ users, using machine learning methods.