Maximizing the spread of competitive influence in a social network oriented to viral marketing

Abstract

In this paper, we discuss the maximization of the spread of competitive influence when multiple companies market competing product using social network. We first extend the linear threshold model by incorporating the competitive influence spread, obtaining the extended linear threshold model (ELTM). We then give the objective function of selecting the optimal seed set of competing products in a social network, and the objective function is monotone and submodular under the ELTM, thus a greedy algorithm could achieve 1−1/e approximation ration (where e is the base of natural logarithm). Accordingly, preliminary experimental results verify the feasibility of our method.