I Like Your Tagged Photos, But Do We Know Each Other?: Analyzing the Role of Tags in Like Networks

With the development of smart devices and the popularization of social media, communication between users is becoming increasingly active in the online space, revitalizing a new relationships formed and developed. Individuals are connecting with various people, which makes many companies actively employ social media to communicate with existing and potential customers for marketing. While social networks comprise a mix of various activities such as liking, commenting, tagging, and following, little is known about the way in which liking and tagging characterize one's social networks. In this paper, we define two types of a like network: tag-based like network, non-tag-based like network and present a comparative analysis with regard to their structural and temporal aspects. Our study results show (1) a significant difference in the network size and the degree of components between the two networks and (2) the potential of the tag-based like network to have more followers than the non-tag-based like network. We highlight how the tag-based like network can be utilized to find users with the same interests, supporting additional, interest based social connection and interaction. Our study insights are expected to be developed and utilized as a web service system.