System and method for social network analysis

1. A system for detecting an interactive network of a plurality of automated accounts posting to a social media channel, wherein each automated account is operated by at least one social media account computational device, the system comprising: an ingestion computational device comprising a first memory for storing a plurality of first instructions and a first processor for executing said first instructions, wherein said first instructions include instructions for:

connecting to the social media channel; and

receiving a plurality of social media postings from a plurality of posting entities;

the system further comprising an analysis computational device comprising a second memory for storing a plurality of second instructions and a second processor for executing said second instructions, wherein said second instructions include instructions for:

determining whether at least one posting entity is a suspected bot; and

determining a score for at least the following characteristics of each automated account:

whether the number of followers is larger than the number of postings: post_count<foll_count; and

the absolute value of the number of followers minus the number of postings: foll_count−post_count;

and a computer network for communication between said computational devices;

wherein said analysis computational device further comprises a first set of machine codes selected from the native instruction set for receiving a plurality of social media postings, a second set of machine codes selected from the native instruction set for applying a plurality of filters to said postings and entities authoring said postings, wherein each filter comprises at least one characteristic above, and a third set of machine codes selected from the native instruction set for determining a category of said automated social media account as human or automated;

wherein said ingestion engine obtains social media messages for a plurality of social media accounts, said ingestion computational device transmitting said social media messages to said analysis computational device; and wherein said analysis computational device detects a network of a plurality of connected automated social media accounts acting in concert according to a statistical analysis of said social media messages; wherein at least one thousand social media messages, at least one thousand followers of each social media account or both are analyzed; and wherein behavior of said network of connected automated social media accounts acting in concert is monitored for social media mentions.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein said second instructions further comprise instructions to determine a score for at least one of the following characteristics of each automated account:

a. Ratio of the number of followers to the number of postings: foll_count/post_count;

b. Total number of postings: post_count

c. Sum of the number of followers and the number of postings: foll_count+post_count

d. Ratio of the number of followers to number of friends: foll_count/friends_count;

e. Support application software used for posting.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein said third set of machine codes assigns a social media account to one of a plurality of categories, wherein at least one category is automated and at least one category is identified as human operated; wherein said categories are distinguished at least according to a cutoff point of too much activity for a particular volumetric growth phase of the account.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein said cutoff comprises a combination of total number of followers and posts, and a ratio of followers to posts.

5. The system of claim 4 , wherein said third set of machine codes comprises codes for calculating a number of followers (accounts following said social media account) and a number of friends (accounts that said social media account is following); if said number of friends is greater than said number of followers, codes for determining a ratio of said followers to said friends; and codes for determining a higher automation score as said ratio increases.

6. The system of claim 4 , wherein said third set of machine codes comprise codes for calculating a ratio of number of followers to number of posts; as said ratio decreases, said codes determine a higher automation score.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein said social media computational device comprises one or more of a laptop, a PC, a mobile communication device, a mobile telephone, a tablet computational device and a plurality of cloud based computational services.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein said social media computational device comprises a support social media application for posting social media messages to said social media channel in an automated manner, wherein said analysis computational device determines an automation behavior score for a social media account associated with said social media computational device at least partially according to a characterization of said support social media application.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein said analysis computational device further comprises a fourth set of machine codes selected from the native instruction set for adding scores obtained for said category, said automation behavior, and said automation scores, to form a final score; and for determining a likelihood of said social media account being operated automatically according to said final score.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein said analysis computational device comprises an operating system and wherein said operating system determines said native instruction set.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein said analysis computational device further comprises a fifth set of machine codes for detecting a plurality of connected automated social media accounts according to said final scores and according to social media connections between said automated social media accounts.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein said social media connections comprise resharing, liking, favoriting or otherwise promoting a social media message from a first automated social media account by a second automated social media account.

13. The system of claim 11 , wherein said analysis computational device further comprises a sixth set of machine codes for displaying connections between said connected automated social media accounts in a graph, the system further comprising a display for displaying said graph to a user.

14. The system of claim 13 , further comprising at least one recipient computational device for receiving an alarm about said connected automated social media accounts, said alarm comprising at least one of an identity of said connected automated social media accounts or a content distributed by said connected automated social media accounts.

15. The system of claim 14 , wherein said alarm relates to said content distributed by said connected automated social media accounts, wherein said content relates to information about a publicly traded company.

16. The system of claim 15 , wherein each set of machine codes is stored on a memory associated with said computational device.