Whom to befriend to influence people

Alice wants to join a new social network, and influence its members to adopt a new product or idea. Each person $v$ in the network has a certain threshold $t(v)$ for {\em activation}, i.e adoption of the product or idea. If $v$ has at least $t(v)$ activated neighbors, then $v$ will also become activated. If Alice wants to activate the entire social network, whom should she befriend? More generally, we study the problem of finding the minimum number of links that a set of external influencers should form to people in the network, in order to activate the entire social network. This {\em Minimum Links} Problem has applications in viral marketing and the study of epidemics. Its solution can be…