Characterizing Group-Level User Behavior in Major Online Social Networks

In this paper, we conduct a detailed measurement study to characterize and compare the “group-level”behavior of users in Facebook, Twitter and Google+. We focus on Popular, Cross (with account in three OSNs) and Random group of users in each OSN since they offer complementary views. We capture user behavior with the following metrics: user connectivity, user activity and user reactions. Our grouplevel methodology enables us to capture major trends in the behavior of small but important groups of users, and to conduct interand intra-OSN comparison of user behavior. Furthermore, we conduct temporal analysis on different aspects of user behavior for all groups over a two-year period. Our analysis leads to a set of useful insights including: (i) The more likely reaction by Facebook and Google+ users is to express their opinion whereas TW users tend to relay a received post to other users and thus facilitate its propagation. Despite the culture of reshare among Twitter users, a post by a Popular Facebook user receives more Reshares than a post by a Popular Twitter user. (ii) Added features in an OSN can significantly boost the rate of action and reaction among its users.