Method and Apparatus for Social Network Marketing with Consumer Referral

• US 20090222302A1
• Filed: 03/03/2008
• Published: 09/03/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: R2 Solutions LLC (Acacia Research Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Yahoo! Inc. (Apollo Global Management, Inc.)
• Inventors: O'Sullivan, Joseph, Higgins, Christopher William, Davis, Marc
• Granted Patent: US 8,554,623 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0214 Referral reward systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/01 Social networking

Abstract

A service provider facilitates consumption of goods, brands, or services on an interactive network using characterizations of consumers, behavior, brands, consumable goods, advertisers, and advocates to determine a three-way match between a consumable good, a consumer, and an advocate. The matching method determines one or more likely consumers by maximizing the estimated contextual value of personalized advocacy. Further, the service provider captures the value of the personalized advocacy in each match, and distributes that value in the form of various marketing incentives.

Claims

1. A method of providing marketing advocacy over a network, the method comprising:

accessing a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a marketed object, one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object, and one or more attributes of one or more network users;

determining, for each of the one or more network users,

a measure of the value of the relationship between the network user and the object, denoted knowledge, and

a measure of the value of the relationship between the advocate and the network user, denoted connection;

combining the knowledge and connection measures to estimate a net value of marketing advocacy for each of the network users;

sorting the network users using the estimated net value of marketing advocacy; and

facilitating communication between the advocate and one or more network users with largest net marketing value.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said facilitating communication between the advocate and one or more network users further comprises providing instrumentation of a marketing message to the network user to establish a two-way communication link between the advocate and a network user instantiated by a single network user interface action.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said two-way communication link further comprises one or more of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call, a telephone call, a cellular phone call, a smart phone call, an instant messaging session, an e-mail communication, a Short Message Sevice (SMS) protocol message, a text message, or a mail message.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said determining measures of the knowledge and the connection further comprises:

dividing the one or more attributes into groups, one group relevant to knowledge, and one group relevant to connection,

quantizing the attributes in each group;

determining the value of each attribute in each group;

combining the determined values for the group relevant to knowledge to compute a combined knowledge measurement; and

combining the determined values for the group relevant to connection to compute a combined connection measurement.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said determining the value of each attribute in the group characterizing a relationship between a party A and a party B further comprises one or more of (a) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the party A with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (b) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (c) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (d) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party A, and (e) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party B.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein said combining the determined values for the group relevant to a trait further comprises one or more of (a) computing a weighted linear combination of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait (b) computing a weighted sum of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait, and (c) computing a weighted sum of the squares of each of the determining values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait.

7. An apparatus for providing marketing advocacy over a network, said apparatus comprising a memory, one ore more central processing units, and a set of one or more processor instructions, said instructions operative, when executed by one or more of the processor units, to:

access a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a marketed object, one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object, and one or more attributes of one or more network users;

determine, for each of the one or more network users,

a measure of the value of the relationship between the network user and the object, denoted knowledge, and

a measure of the value of the relationship between the advocate and the network user, denoted connection;

combine the knowledge and connection measures to estimate a net value of marketing advocacy for each of the network users;

sort the network users using the estimated net value of marketing advocacy; and

facilitate communication between the advocate and one or more network users with largest net marketing value.

8. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to facilitate communication between the advocate and one or more network users further comprises to provide instrumentation for a marketing message to a network user to establish a two-way communication link between the advocate and the network user instantiated by a single network user interface action.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein said two-way communication link further comprises one or more of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) call, a telephone call, a cellular phone call, a smart phone call, an instant messaging session, an e-mail communication, a Short Message Sevice (SMS) protocol message, a text message, or a mail message.

10. The apparatus of claim 7, wherein to determine measures of the knowledge and the connection further comprises:

dividing the one or more attributes into groups, one group relevant to knowledge, and one group relevant to connection,

quantizing the attributes in each group;

determining the value of each attribute in each group;

combining the determined values for the group relevant to knowledge to compute a combined knowledge measurement; and

combining the determined values for the group relevant to connection to compute a combined connection measurement.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein to determine the value of each attribute in the group characterizing a relationship between a party A and a party B further comprises one or more of (a) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the party A with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (b) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (c) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the party A and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the party B, (d) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party A, and (e) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for party B.

12. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein to combine the determined values for the group relevant to a trait further comprises one or more of (a) computing a weighted linear combination of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait (b) computing a weighted sum of each of the determined values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait, and (c) computing a weighted sum of the squares of each of the determining values for attributes in the group relevant to the trait.

13. A method to capture and distribute the value of marketing advocacy over a network, the method comprising:

accessing a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a network user, one or more attributes of an object of interest to the user, and one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object;

providing instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate;

determining a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the object;

collecting a measure of the net value of marketing advocacy from one or more marketing sponsors; and

distributing said collections to provide advocacy marketing incentives, advocacy system costs, and advocacy system provider profit.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said providing instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate further comprises one or more of linking the one or more marketing messages with one or more means of communication with the advocate, facilitating network-based communications between the advocate and the network user, logging any commercial activity related to communication between the advocate and the network user, and calculating the market value of any of said commercial activity.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein said determining a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the object further comprises

calculating the gross commercial value of one or more marketing messages associated with advocacy by the advocate;

estimating the gross commercial value of the one or more marketing messages without advocacy by the advocate; and

determining said net value as the difference between the calculated gross commercial value with advocacy and the estimated gross commercial value without advocacy.

16. An apparatus to capture and distribute the value of marketing advocacy over a network, said apparatus comprising a memory, one ore more central processing units, and a set of one or more processor instructions, said instructions operative, when executed by one or more of the processor units, to:

access a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a network user, one or more attributes of an object of interest to the user, and one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object;

provide instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate;

determine a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the object;

collect a measure of the net value of marketing advocacy from one or more marketing sponsors; and

distribute said collections to provide advocacy marketing incentives, advocacy system costs, and advocacy system provider profit.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein to provide instrumentation of one or more marketing messages for the object to track commercial activity in relation to the advocate further comprises one or more of linking the one or more marketing messages with one or more means of communication with the advocate, facilitating network-based communications between the advocate and the network user, logging any commercial activity related to communication between the advocate and the network user, and calculating the market value of any of said commercial activity.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein to determine a net value of marketing advocacy for consumption of the object further comprises

calculating the gross commercial value of one or more marketing messages associated with advocacy by the advocate;

estimating the gross commercial value of the one or more marketing messages without advocacy by the advocate; and

determining said net value as the difference between the calculated gross commercial value with advocacy and the estimated gross commercial value without advocacy.

19. A method of providing marketing advocacy over a network, the method comprising:

accessing a datastore to obtain one or more attributes of a marketed object, one or more attributes of an advocate of consumption of the object, and one or more attributes of one or more network users; and

for each of the one or more network users,

determining, for each of the one or more attributes, a measure of the value of the attribute as it pertains to the marketing value in the relationships between the advocate, the network user, and the object, and

linearly combining each of the one or measures into an estimated net value of marketing advocacy in relation to the network user;

sorting the network users using the estimated net value of marketing advocacy; and

facilitating communication between the advocate and one or more network users with largest net marketing value.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein said determining a measure of the value of each attribute as it pertains to the marketing value in the relationships between the advocate, the network user, and the object, further comprises quantizing each of the one or more attributes of the network user, the advocate, and the object, and scoring the quantized attributes.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein said scoring the quantized attributes further comprises one or more of (a) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the network user, (b) correlating the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate with the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the object, (c) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the network user, (d) determining the difference between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the object, (e) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the network user, (f) determining the Euclidean distance between the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate and the quantized value of the corresponding attribute for the object, (g) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for the advocate, (h) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for the network user and (i) determining the magnitude of the quantized value of the attribute for the object.

22. The method of claim 19, wherein said linearly combining each of the one or measures into an estimated net value of marketing advocacy in relation to the network user further comprises

calculating, for each measure of the value of an attribute as it pertains to the marketing value in the relationships between the advocate, the network user, and the object, a contribution consisting of the product of the measure and a tap weight;

and

accumulating the contribution for each measure of the value of an attribute to obtain a total estimated net value.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein said linearly combining further comprises

tracking an actual net value of provided marketing advocacy in relation to the network user;

determining a difference between the estimated net value and the actual net value to obtain an error value;

correlating the error value with each measure of the value of an attribute to obtain an adjustment quantity;

determining tap weight adjustments by scaling said adjustment quantities.