Influence Spread over Social Networks and Seed Selection Problem

Social communities, whether online or real, can be seen as networks. In these networks, each node corresponds to an individual and two nodes are connected on this network if they are related (e.g. are friends). Social networks are the environment where the social influence takes place. For example, a person is clearly influenced by its neighbors (friends) on a social network about which movie to watch, which video content to post on Facebook, or what to retweet. Or, a rumor will spread among people through the links of this social network. In that respect, it is clear that the nature of these networks as well as how people interact with social neighbors play a crucial role in understanding spread dynamics of a message, behavior, belief and/opinion in a social community. In this context, this project mainly focuses on the seed selection aspect. 

Seed selection: When you want to promote an idea to a community, you will have a large number of options about whom to choose as the first set of people to learn about the idea. These will be the people who initiate the spread. Hence, they are called the seed set. The question is about finding the best seeds on a network. Which seed set is best if you want to maximize the spread of an idea/message?