Understanding online groups through social media

Multiple fields including sociology, anthropology, and business are interested in understanding group behavior. Applying data mining techniques to socialmedia can help provide insights into group behavior and divulge a group's characteristics by identifying a group, developing a profile for a group, revealing the sentiment of a group, and detailing a group's composition. The ability to accomplishthese tasks has practical business and scientific applications such as understanding customers betterand providing new insights into influence propagation, as well as the ability to accurately categorize groups over time. This paper highlights some ongoing research efforts aiming at understanding groups through social media.