Strong and Weak Ties I

(Social Media Analytics)

Deepayan Chakrabarti (deepay@utexas.edu)

1 Strong and Weak Ties I

Finding a job
 Mark Granovetter, 1973, carried out a survey

me my contact my new employer

 How did you find a new job?

 I had a contact
 who pointed me to a prospective employer
 who hired me

2 Strong and Weak Ties I

Finding a job
 Mark Granovetter, 1973, carried out a survey

me my contact my new employer

 How frequently do you meet the contact who pointed you

towards your job?
 frequently (2+ times/week): 17%
 occasionally (at least once a year): 55%
 rarely: 28%

3 Strong and Weak Ties I

Finding a job
 Mark Granovetter, 1973, carried out a survey

me my contact my new employer

 How did your contact know your new employer?

 contact is the employer
 or works for the employer
 or is directly connected to the employer

4 Strong and Weak Ties I

Finding a job
 Mark Granovetter, 1973, carried out a survey

me my contact my new employer

 Two conclusions
 The new employer was only one or two hops away from me
 But the contact was a weak connection
 “not a friend, an acquaintance”
 Puzzle:
 If my would-be employer is so “close”, why didn’t my close
friends help me?
5 Strong and Weak Ties I
Finding a job

 Perhaps
 my close friends all have the same information
 and I already knew about it
 so only my “acquaintances, not friends” had new information

 But why this difference between close friends and

acquaintances?

6 Strong and Weak Ties I

Main idea
 Not all social links are created equal
 “Strong” ties with close friends
 “Weak” ties with far-off acquaintances

 These ties are structurally different!

7 Strong and Weak Ties I

Outline
 Triadic closure
 Main idea
 Measuring via clustering coefficient

 Bridges
 Connection to Triadic Closure
 Measuring via neighborhood overlap

 Examples

8 Strong and Weak Ties I

Triadic closure
 Basic principle:
 If two people B and C have a common friend A, then
 B and C are likely to become friends themselves

 The B-C edge “closes the triangle”

A C

9 Strong and Weak Ties I

Triadic closure
 Why?
 Opportunity: B and C are likely to be introduced via A
 Trust: B trusts C because they have a common friend A
 Incentive: A feels latent stress if B and C are not friends
 Homophily: A, B, and C all like the same things

A C

10 Strong and Weak Ties I

Triadic closure
 End effect:
 We expect friendships to “close the open edge”
 leading to lots of triangles
 many more than in a “random” network B

A C

 Strong friendships  triangles  an echo chamber

 a circle of close friends probably all have the same information.

11 Strong and Weak Ties I

Triadic closure
 End effect:
 We expect friendships to “close the open edge”
 leading to lots of triangles
 many more than in a “random” network B

 How do we measure triadic closure?

 Clustering coefficient A C

12 Strong and Weak Ties I

Outline
 Triadic closure
 Main idea
 Measuring via clustering coefficient

 Bridges
 Connection to Triadic Closure
 Measuring via neighborhood overlap

 Examples

13 Strong and Weak Ties I

Measuring triadic closure
 What are the properties of a score for triadic closure?
 Consider two nodes A and B
 Suppose they have no common friends
 Does it matter to triadic closure?
 Effect on score?

A B

14 Strong and Weak Ties I

Measuring triadic closure
 What are the properties of a score for triadic closure?
 Suppose A and B have one common friend C

 A is a friend of B Higher score

versus
 A is not friends with B

 Which one should get a higher score?

A B
C

15 Strong and Weak Ties I

Measuring triadic closure
 Suppose A and B have a  A and B have two common
common friend C friends C and D
Stronger
 A is a friend of B positive effect
 A is a friend of B on score
versus versus
 A is not friends with B  A is not friends with B

A B A B
C C
16 Strong and Weak Ties I
Measuring triadic closure
 What are the properties of a score for triadic closure?

 No common friends  no effect

 With common friend(s)  closing the triangle is positive
 More common friends  stronger effect

17 Strong and Weak Ties I

Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient
 (for a node; we will look at clustering coeff for a network later)
 Look only at ‘V’ shapes around a node
 Score depends on whether the ends of the V are friends or not

D
C
C B C
B B
A D A
A
One V shape Three V shapes One V shape
around A around A around A

18 Strong and Weak Ties I

 Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

CC of A =
0
=0 B B CC of A =
1
=1
1 1

A C A C

19 Strong and Weak Ties I

Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

E B
Number of closed V =

Number of V =

A C

D
20 Strong and Weak Ties I
Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

E B
Number of closed V =

Number of V =

A C

D
21 Strong and Weak Ties I
Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

E B
Number of closed V =

Number of V =

A C

D
22 Strong and Weak Ties I
Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

E B
Number of closed V =

Number of V =

A C

D
23 Strong and Weak Ties I
Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

E B
Number of closed V =

Number of V =

A C

D
24 Strong and Weak Ties I
Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

E B
Number of closed V =

Number of V =

A C
3
CC of A = = 0.5
6

D
25 Strong and Weak Ties I
Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient

Number of “closed” V shapes around A

 CC of A =
Number of V shapes around A

Number of edges between friends of A

=
(Number of friends of A) * (Number of friends of A - 1) / 2

E B

A C

26 Strong and Weak Ties I

Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient
 determines degree of triadic closure around A
 between 0 and 1
 0  no triadic closure  none of my friends know each other
 1  full triadic closure  me and my friends are all together

E B

A C

27 Strong and Weak Ties I

Measuring triadic closure
 Clustering coefficient E

Number of “closed” V shapes

 CC =
Number of V shapes
D

C
 Let’s check our desired properties A B
 No common friends  no effect
 True because we only look at ‘V’ shapes
 With common friend(s)  closing the triangle is positive
 True, because the closed triangles increase the CC of node C
 More common friends  stronger effect
 True, because it increases the clustering coefficient of nodes C, D, E

28 Strong and Weak Ties I

Practice Examples

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

Find the clustering coefficient of every

node

29 Strong and Weak Ties I

Practice Examples
1 12
2 11

3 10

4 9

5 8
6 7

Find the clustering coefficient of every

node
30 Strong and Weak Ties I
They are the same network!
1 12

2 11
1 2 3 4

3 10
5 6 7 8
This is a planar
graph too!
9 10 11 12 4 9

5 8
6 7

 Each node has the same neighbors in both networks

 … so they are the same network
 If you can draw a network without the edges crossing each other
 Planar graph
31 Strong and Weak Ties I
Planar networks are useful in electronics

Nodes

Edges

… but for social networks, we usually don’t care about planarity.

32 Strong and Weak Ties I

Practice Examples
CFO
Legal CEO

VP 1 VP 2

MGR
MGR MGR MGR 4
1 2 3

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Find the clustering coefficient for every role in the org

tree
33 Strong and Weak Ties I
Practice Examples
CC = 1/6 CC
CFO
Legal CEO undefined
CC
undefined

VP 1 VP 2 CC = 2/6 = 0.33

CC = 4/10 = 0.4
MGR
MGR MGR MGR 4
1 2 3

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

CC = 1

34 Strong and Weak Ties I

Practice Examples

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

Which node(s) have the high clustering

coefficient?
• Use symmetry
• 1, 4, 9 are the same as 12
• 10, 3, 2 are the same as 11
• …
35 Strong and Weak Ties I
Practice Examples

1 2 3 4
CC = 3/10 = 0.3

5 6 7 8 CC = 2/6 = 0.33

9 10 11 12

CC = 3/10 CC = 2/6 = 0.33

= 0.3

• Use symmetry
• 1, 4, 9 are the same as 12
• 10, 3, 2 are the same as 11
• …
36 Strong and Weak Ties I
 The Random Graph
1 12
 The Random Graph
2 11  For every pair of nodes
 Connect them with
3
? 10 probability p

4 9

5 8
6 7

37 Strong and Weak Ties I

 The Random Graph
 The Random Graph
?  For every pair of nodes
 Connect them with
probability p

Prob. 1-p Prob. p

?
?

Prob. 1-p Prob. 1-p Prob. p

Prob. p

38 Strong and Weak Ties I

 The Random Graph
1 12
 Let’s say we created such
2 11 a Random Graph with
prob. p for each edge
3 10

 What will be the clustering

4 9 coefficient?

5 8
6 7

39 Strong and Weak Ties I

The Random Graph
 Let’s look at one node
1
2 11
 What is the CC of node 1?

10

 Look at the neighbors

 These give the V-shapes
 2-1-5, 2-1-10, 5-1-11, etc.
5
7

40 Strong and Weak Ties I

The Random Graph
 Let’s look at one node
1
2 11
 What is the CC of node 1?

10

 When is a V-shape closed?

 (say, 2-1-7)
5  only if 2 is linked to 7
7
 This happens with
probability p
 So we expect a fraction p of
the V-shapes to be closed
41 Strong and Weak Ties I
The Random Graph
 Let’s say we created such
a Random Graph with
? prob. p for each edge

 How many friends will

each person have?
 If there are N people total
 then (N-1) possible friends
 each with prob. p
 So each person has
around
friends
42 Strong and Weak Ties I
The Random Graph
 So, in a Random Graph with N people and probability p
 Each person has (roughly)
 number of friends = (N-1) * p
 clustering coefficient = p

 How well does this match the Facebook network?

 N = 1,000,000,000
 Each person has (roughly) 200 friends
 (N-1) * p = 200
 p = extremely small
 extremely small clustering coefficient

43 Strong and Weak Ties I

The Random Graph
 If FB followed the random graph model
 clustering coefficient must be extremely small
 But we know it ain’t so!
 Between 0.05 and 0.5 for most folks

Social networks are not random!

44 Strong and Weak Ties I

Triadic closure
 What does triadic closure tell us?
 High triadic closure
 My friends all know each other
 We are all close to each other
 So we probably have access to the same kinds of information…

 My close friends might not have new information

 The job openings they know of,
I already knew about them

 Then who can give me new information?

45 Strong and Weak Ties I