Patent Document ID: 9053497
Application ID: 13832059

Base Claim:
1. A method for targeting advertising campaigns, comprising: obtaining a set of advertising content data using an advertising targeting server system including at least one computer with a processor and memory, where the advertising content data comprises advertising keywords and brand data; identifying at least one target member within a set of member data associated with an online social network using the advertising targeting server system, wherein: the set of member data comprises member relationship data describing the relationships associated with each member in the set of member data; the target members in the set of member data are associated with message data provided by the online social network having target member keywords associated with the advertising keywords and brand data, where the target member keywords comprise a positive affinity toward the set of advertising content data; and the relationship member data describes a relationship between each target member and the brand data; identifying at least one seed member within the set of member data associated with the online social network using the advertising targeting server system, wherein: the seed members within the set of member data are associated with seed member message data provided by the online social network having seed member keywords associated with the target member keywords; and the relationship member data does not describe a relationship between the seed members and the target members; determining a set of member groups within a set of member data associated with an online social network using the advertising targeting server system, where a member group comprises at least one target member in the set of member data and at least one seed member in the set of member data; generating targeting data targeting a portion of the advertising content data to each of the member groups in the set of member data using the advertising targeting server system, where the targeted portion of the advertising content data comprises advertising keywords associated with the target member keywords corresponding to the target member included in a group of member data; and providing the targeting data in response to a request for the targeting data.

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Claim 5:
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the set of member groups further comprises: clustering the target members into one or more member groups based on the messages posted by each of the target members using the advertising targeting server system, where target members within the same member group express similar intents based on the messages posted by the target members in the same member cluster; associating at least one member who is not a target member with each of the member groups based on relationships between the at least one member and the target member within the online social network using the advertising targeting server system; predicting the interest level with respect to the advertising content of each of the member groups based on the messages posted by the target members in the member group using the advertising targeting server system; and estimating the connectedness of the member groups based on the members in each of the member groups using the advertising targeting server system.