Examining the timing effect of information diffusion on social media platforms: A temporal networks approach

Abstract

Users' attention is generally allocated in a rather inequitable manner on social media platforms (SMP). An important question for both researchers and practitioners is: how and why do the popular contents get popular? Previous studies have investigated this question from diverse perspectives. In this study, we propose that the time when the content is generated has a significant impact on its popularity on SMP. We examine this timing effect by adopting a temporal networks modelling approach. Our research hypotheses focus on how users' active time periods affect the spread of information at the dyadic level, how the temporal order of information diffusion affects the popularity of online content at the global level. Using data from a popular micro-blog website, we find evidences that the time when a piece of online content is posted has a significant effect on the popularity of the content. This study contributes to the diffusion and social network literature by showing that the time dimension of social networks has a significant effect in the information diffusion process. Results from this study can shed light on how to design and implement more effective and successful viral marketing campaigns on SMP.