System and method for aggregating social network feed information

• US 10,319,046 B2
• Filed: 07/21/2013
• Issued: 06/11/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 07/20/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Salesforce.com, Inc.
• Inventors: Doyle, Liam Tomar Fontvieille, Craven, Andrew Ian, Joe, Teddy K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Macasiano, Marilyn G
• Application Number:
  US13/947,065
• Publication Number:
  US 20150025977A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,151 Days
• Field of Search: 705 1448, 705 1416, 709204, 725 729
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0269 based on user profile or attribute
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0282 Rating or review of business operators or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

In accordance with disclosed embodiments, there are provided methods, systems, and apparatuses for aggregating social network feed information including, for example, means for receiving user activity data from one or more social networks; parsing the user activity data to render a plurality of targeting parameters culled from the user activity data; matching one or more of the plurality of targeting parameters with advertising conditions for a social media campaign, wherein the advertising conditions of the social media campaign are contextually relevant to the one or more targeting parameters matched; recommending the social media campaign via a user interface; receiving authorization to launch the social media campaign via input received at the user interface or automatically launching the social media campaign based on pre-defined parameters; and deploying the social media campaign to one or many social media networks. Other related embodiments are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method performed by a social network feed manager executing within a system of a host organization, the system having at least a processor coupled with a memory therein to execute instructions at the system, wherein the method comprises:

receiving, via a recommendation engine of the system, advertising conditions from an advertising client for a social media campaign and storing the advertising conditions in a database system communicably interfaced with the system;

wherein the advertising conditions define at least (i) one or more targeting parameters to be present within content of a plurality of social networks and (ii) a threshold volume and velocity for the presence of the one or more targeting parameter on the plurality of social networks to be attained;

querying the plurality of social networks to validate the one or more targeting parameters specified via the advertising conditions and receiving query responses from the plurality of social networks indicating the one or more targeting parameters are valid;

receiving, at a listener interface of the system, user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks;

parsing, via a data parser of the system, the user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks to render the one or more targeting parameters present within the content of the plurality of social networks;

determining a threshold volume and velocity for the presence of the one or more targeting parameter on the plurality of social networks has been attained by counting a quantity of occurrences for the one or more targeting parameters present in the content of the plurality of social networks at each of time₁ and time₂ and measuring change in velocity over time based on the quantity of occurrences counted at each of time₁ and time₂; and

deploying, via the campaign launcher, the social media campaign to one or many social media networks.

2. The method of claim 1:

wherein the user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks includes a first user activity data stream and a second user activity data stream;

wherein the first user activity data stream and the second user activity data stream include both user-generated content and user interactions by a same user with each of the plurality of social networks;

wherein the user-generated content includes one or more of;

(i) user-generated images, (ii) one or more user videos, and one or more user comments; and

wherein the user interactions for the same user defines one or more of;

(i) advertising interacted with by the same user in any fashion, (ii) advertising interacted with by the same user via an impression, a click-through, a posting to another social network, a re-posting by the same user on an original social network where the advertising first appeared, an advertising impression to the same user, or (iii) advertising interacted with by the same user via a purchasing history by the same user.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the method further comprises:

combining, via a data stream combiner of the system, a first user activity data stream from a first one of the plurality of social networks with a second user activity data stream from a second one of the plurality of social networks to form aggregated user activity data;

wherein the aggregated user activity data includes both the user interactions and the user-generated content by the same user having been received at the listener interface of the system from the first and second social networks.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the user activity data comprises user activity data originated by social network users of at least one of:

Facebook'"'"'s social network;

LinkedIn'"'"'s social network;

Twitter'"'"'s social network;

Chatter'"'"'s social network;

Instagram'"'"'s social network;

Pinterest'"'"'s social network;

user comment data from a blogging website;

user review data from a review site;

user comment data from a news web site;

or

another accessible social network.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

receiving authorization to launch the social media campaign via input received at a user interface.

6. The method of claim 1:

wherein the user activity data comprises data pertaining to users'"'"' activities, comments, connections, likes, social mentions, tweets, re-tweets, handles, hash tags, reviews, system data, temporal data, location data, and/or other metadata as generated within either of the one or more social networks as the users engage with the social networks;

wherein weightings are applied to the targeting parameters based on type; and

wherein the recommending the social media campaign comprises selecting the social media campaign from multiple social media campaigns based at least in part on the weightings applied to the targeting parameters matched for the selected social media campaign.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether the one or more targeting parameters constitutes a trending topic on the social networks; and

wherein the method further comprises recommending a new social media campaign for the advertising client based at least in part on the one or more targeting parameters as specified by the advertising client becoming a trending topic.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises recommending a new social media campaign to the advertising client by the following operations:

displaying, to a user interface, multiple eligible social media campaigns ready for deployment to the social networks pending the authorizing to launch from the user interface, wherein any or all of the multiple eligible social media campaigns are selectable;

receiving authorization from the user interface to launch all selected ones of the multiple eligible social media campaigns; and

deploying all the selected ones of the multiple eligible social media campaigns responsive to receiving the authorization to launch or automatically deploying all the selected ones of the multiple eligible social media campaigns based on pre-authorization criteria from the advertising client.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

matching one or more of the plurality of targeting parameters with the advertising conditions or a social media campaign, by the following operations;

selecting one of the targeting parameters;

comparing the selected targeting parameter against records in a definition database having the advertising conditions for a plurality of social media campaigns stored therein for a match; and

repeating the selecting and the comparing until at least one of the plurality of targeting parameters are matched.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

matching one or more of the plurality of targeting parameters with the advertising conditions for a social media campaign, by the following operations;

selecting one of a plurality of records from a definitions database, each record having the advertising conditions for one of a plurality of social media campaigns therein;

comparing the selected record against the plurality of advertising conditions to determine if a match is present; and

repeating the selecting and the comparing until at least one of the plurality of records are matched with the one or more advertising conditions.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining whether any of the one or more targeting parameters exist at social media networks from which the user activity data streams originated;

determining at least one of the targeting parameters are not acceptable and responsively triggering, via a matching engine of the system, subsequent test queries to identify synonyms for key words or alternative targeting parameters for the social media campaign; and

deploying the social media campaign using the one or more targeting parameters matched which exist at the social media networks and using the identified key words or alternative targeting parameters for the social media campaign for the one or more targeting parameters which do not exist at the social media networks.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein determining whether targeting parameters exist at the social media networks from which user activity data originated comprises:

sending test queries to the social media networks specifying the targeting parameters; and

receiving query responses from the social media networks indicating the targeting parameters, words, key words, phrases, locations, demographics, psychographics, symbols, user IDs, user handles, memes, event and incident names, are valid.

13. The method of claim 11, wherein determining whether targeting parameters exist at the social media networks from which the user activity data originated comprises validating the targeting parameters against a targeting database which defines advertising constraints and advertising conditions for an advertising client.

14. The method of claim 1:

wherein the host organization implements the system which performs the method via computing architecture of the host organization including at least the processor and the memory;

wherein a user interface operates at a second computing device remote from the host organization and communicatively interfaced with the host organization via a public Internet; and

wherein the host organization operates as a cloud based service provider to the second computing device.

15. The method of claim 1:

wherein the social media campaign comprises some of text, link, image, video, flash and/or other rich media; and

wherein deploying the social media campaign to one or many of the social media networks comprises instructing the social media networks to share the combination of text, link, image, video, flash and/or other rich media of the social media campaign to social media users associated with the one or more targeting parameters culled from the user activity data.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

evaluating, via an automation engine, pre-authorization conditions by an advertising client to launch the social media campaign; and

launching the advertising campaign subject to the pre-authorization conditions bypassing receiving authorization operations.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein deploying the social media campaign to one or many of the social media networks comprises:

interfacing to an Application Programming Interface (API) of each of the social media networks; and

issuing the social media campaign to each of the social media networks via targeting parameters available at the API of the social media networks to specify the one or more targeting parameters matched and/or social media users to be targeted by the social media campaign, or other criteria for which social media users are to be reached by the social media campaign.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein the advertising conditions for deploying the social media campaign comprises:

specifying a maximum, a minimum, or a range of permissible cost expenditure for the social media campaign to each of the respective social media networks;

specifying a maximum, a minimum, or a range of permissible time to live for the social media campaign; and

specifying a maximum, a minimum, or a range of permissible number of social media users to be reached by the social media campaign.

19. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring effectiveness of the deployed social media campaign based on one or more of:

page loads for a website corresponding to a web-link shared via the social media campaign;

a change in web-traffic for a client having authorized the social media campaign subsequent to deploying the social media campaign;

conversion points using code provided locally or using code other by web analytics companies;

social mentions of the client having authorized the social media campaign subsequent to deploying the social media campaign;

likes, thumbs up, and/or thumbs down for the social media campaign shared or the client having authorized the social media campaign subsequent to deploying the social media campaign;

replies to the social media campaign shared;

or

another measurable goal defined by the advertiser.

20. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

evaluating the targeting parameters culled from the user activity data for sentiment;

eliminating any of the plurality of targeting parameters evaluated to correspond with negative sentiment or filtering the plurality of targeting parameters by any other technique defined by the advertiser.

21. Non-transitory computer readable storage media having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor and a coupled memory of a system of a host organization, the instructions cause the system to perform operations comprising:

receiving, via a recommendation engine of the system, advertising conditions from an advertising client for a social media campaign and storing the advertising conditions in a database system communicably interfaced with the system;

wherein the advertising conditions define at least (i) one or more targeting parameters to be present within content of a plurality of social networks and (ii) a threshold volume and velocity for the presence of the one or more targeting parameter on the plurality of social networks to be attained;

querying the plurality of social networks to validate the one or more targeting parameters specified via the advertising conditions and receiving query responses from the plurality of social networks indicating the one or more targeting parameters are valid;

receiving, at a listener interface of the system, user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks;

parsing, via a data parser of the system, the user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks to render the one or more targeting parameters present within the content of the plurality of social networks;

determining a threshold volume and velocity for the presence of the one or more targeting parameter on the plurality of social networks has been attained by counting a quantity of occurrences for the one or more targeting parameters present in the content of the plurality of social networks at each of time₁ and time₂ and measuring change in velocity over time based on the quantity of occurrences counted at each of time₁ and time₂; and

deploying, via the campaign launcher, the social media campaign to one or many social media networks.

22. The non-transitory computer readable storage media of claim 21, wherein the instructions, when executed, cause the system to perform operations further including:

determining whether any of the one or more targeting parameters exist at social media networks from which the user activity data originated;

determining at least one of the targeting parameters are not acceptable and responsively triggering, via a matching engine of the system, subsequent test queries to identify synonyms for key words or alternative targeting parameters for the social media campaign; and

deploying the social media campaign using the one or more targeting parameters matched which exist at the social media networks and using the identified key words or alternative targeting parameters for the social media campaign for the one or more targeting parameters which do not exist at the social media networks.

23. The non-transitory computer readable storage media of claim 21, wherein

wherein the user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks includes a first user activity data stream and a second user activity data stream;

wherein the first user activity data stream and the second user activity data stream include both user-generated content and user interactions by a same user with each of the plurality of social networks;

wherein the user-generated content includes one or more of;

(i) user-generated images, (ii) one or more user videos, and one or more user comments;

wherein the user interactions the same user defines one or more of;

(i) advertising interacted with by the same user in any fashion, (ii) advertising interacted with by the same user via an impression, a click-through, a posting to another social network, a re-posting by the same user on an original social network where the advertising first appeared, an advertising impression to the same user, or (iii) advertising interacted with by the same user via a purchasing history by the same user; and

wherein the method further comprises;

combining, via a data stream combiner of the system, a first user activity data stream from a first one of the plurality of social networks with a second user activity data stream from a second one of the plurality of social networks to form aggregated user activity data and wherein the aggregated user activity data includes both the user interactions and the user-generated content by the same user having been received at the listener interface of the system from the first and second social networks.

24. A system to operate within a host organization having at least the system and a database system there, wherein the system comprises:

a recommendation engine to receive advertising conditions from an advertising client for a social media campaign and storing the advertising conditions in a database system communicably interfaced with the system;

wherein the advertising conditions define at least (i) one or more targeting parameters to be present within content of a plurality of social networks and (ii) a threshold volume and velocity for the presence of the one or more targeting parameter on the plurality of social networks to be attained;

a matching engine to query the plurality of social networks to validate the one or more targeting parameters specified via the advertising conditions and receiving query responses from the plurality of social networks indicating the one or more targeting parameters are valid;

a listener interface to receive user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks;

a data parser to parse the user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks to render the one or more targeting parameters present within the content of the plurality of social networks;

the matching engine to determine the threshold volume and velocity for the presence of the one or more targeting parameter on the plurality of social networks has been attained by counting a quantity of occurrences for the one or more targeting parameters present in the content of the plurality of social networks at each of time₁ and time₂ and measuring change in velocity over time based on the quantity of occurrences counted at each of time₁ and time₂; and

a campaign launcher to deploy the social media campaign to one or many social media networks.

25. The system of claim 24;

wherein the matching engine is to further determine whether any of the one or more targeting parameters exist at social media networks from which the user activity data originated;

wherein the matching engine is to further determine at least one of the targeting parameters are not acceptable and responsively triggering, via a matching engine of the system, subsequent test queries to identify synonyms for key words or alternative targeting parameters for the social media campaign; and

wherein the campaign launcher is to deploy the social media campaign using the one or more targeting parameters matched which exist at the social media networks and using the identified key words or alternative targeting parameters for the social media campaign for the one or more targeting parameters which do not exist at the social media networks.

26. The system of claim 24:

wherein the user activity data originating from each of the plurality of social networks includes a first user activity data stream and a second user activity data stream;

wherein the first user activity data stream and the second user activity data stream include both user-generated content and user interactions by a same user with each of the plurality of social networks;

wherein the user-generated content includes one or more of;

(i) user-generated images, (ii) one or more user videos, and one or more user comments; and

wherein the user interactions the same user defines one or more of;

(i) advertising interacted with by the same user in any fashion, (ii) advertising interacted with by the same user via an impression, a click-through, a posting to another social network, a re-posting by the same user on an original social network where the advertising first appeared, an advertising impression to the same user, or (iii) advertising interacted with by the same user via a purchasing history by the same user.

27. The system of claim 26:

wherein a data stream combiner of the system combines a first user activity data stream from a first one of the plurality of social networks with a second user activity data stream from a second one of the plurality of social networks to form aggregated user activity data;

wherein the aggregated user activity data includes both the user interactions and the user-generated content by the same user having been received at the listener interface of the system from the first and second social networks.