Patent Issued for Methods and systems for identifying high value targets using social media activity (USPTO 11263279): Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company

2022 MAR 18 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (Springfield, Massachusetts, United States) has been issued patent number 11263279, according to news reporting originating out of Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx editors.

The patent’s inventors are Ross, Gareth (Amherst, MA, US), Walker, Tricia (East Hampton, MA, US).

This patent was filed on November 4, 2019 and was published online on March 1, 2022.

From the background information supplied by the inventors, news correspondents obtained the following quote: “Businesses are always looking for ways to increase revenue and increase its sales to new customers. Conventional marketing strategies that an agent uses to attract new customers include TV advertising, email newsletters, hosting local networking events, and the traditional door-to-door relationship building. These conventional strategies take significant amounts of financial resources and may be a time-consuming and a very demanding task. In addition, these strategies are useful for attracting small amounts of new prospects who belong to any geographic area or are associated with any business sector, and who may not end up joining the company as customers at the end of the process.

“However, it is a well-known fact that the most effective way to attract a new customer is by the referral of a satisfied customer, but this may be insufficient for attracting a high number of new customers. Currently, there are limited approaches that agents may use in order to identify individuals who have high referral potential.

“For the aforementioned reasons, there is a need for systems and methods that may improve over the conventional approaches for identifying individuals with high referral potential and attracting new customers.”

Supplementing the background information on this patent, NewsRx reporters also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “Embodiments in the present disclosure are directed to provide systems and methods for identifying high value targets within a particular area, based on an individual’s social media activity. An unconventional approach for identifying new customers is through the leveraging of information associated with satisfied customers that is derived from one or more social media sites. Social media sites such as social networking systems, professional networking systems, and blogging systems, among others, allow an individual to interact, share, and communicate with other members within a network or a group with a variety of backgrounds, interests, and other characteristics. Every social media site associates each member to a profile which includes information such as relationship status, birth date, age, number of children, hometown, occupation, address, and the type of direct association of an individual with other members within the social media site. This information derived from one or more social media profiles is useful to characterize an individual and find individuals who have high referral potential within a particular area, in an easier and faster manner.

“According to an embodiment, a computed-implemented system architecture for identifying high value targets based on data analytics, includes different components which dynamically interact with each other through network connections. In an exemplary embodiment, an agent tool system architecture may one or more internal databases, and one or more external databases operatively coupled to an analysis module, among other system components. Further to this embodiment, the system also includes a user interface through which users, such as agents, interact with the analysis module by means of a computing device. The computing device is any computer type device that receives, processes, and/or transmits digital data. The computing device includes a bus that enables the communication between components such as input/output devices, one or more interfaces, one or more memories, one or more storage devices and one or more central processing units, among other system components.

“According to another embodiment, a computed implemented process for identifying high value targets starts when the analysis module receives a single or multiple search criteria from an agent interacting with a computing device displaying a user interface. In this embodiment, the analysis module scans the data obtained from the profile of one or more individuals in a plurality of social media sites to derive personal information used to identify those individuals who satisfy the search criteria using network mapping techniques.

“In these exemplary embodiments, the analysis module also identifies the profile of members who are directly associated with the individual’s profile within one or more social media sites, and compares the profile of those members with the profile of pleased customers stored in the company’s internal database. If both profiles match, then the analysis module characterizes the member as a pleased customer who may refer the individual to the company. As a result, the analysis module characterizes the individual associated with the member who is a pleased customer, as a high value target with high referral potential. Subsequently, the computing device displays the user interface showing a sorted list of high value targets in descending order according to the number of members who may refer each high value target.

“In some embodiments, an agent retrieves a high value target’s full profile when needed. In these embodiments, the agent selects the high value target from the sorted list shown in the user interface displayed on the computing device. Further to this embodiment, the analysis module receives the agent’s request and retrieves the full profile of the high value target with high referral potential, from one or more social media sites where the high value target may have a personal profile. The high value target’s full profile is shown to the agent through the user interface on his/her computing device.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A computer-implemented method comprising: scanning, by a server, a plurality of social networking sites based on one or more search criteria received from an electronic device of an agent to identify a plurality of first user profiles matching the search criteria; identifying, by the server, at least one second user profile connected to at least one of the plurality of first user profiles using a rich site summary feed associated with the at least one first user profile and the at least one second user profile, wherein the plurality of first user profiles correspond to potentially new customers of the agent’s company; identifying, by the server, a subset of the at least one second user profile that satisfies a threshold, each of the second user profiles corresponding to an existing satisfied customer of the agent’s company; and displaying, by the server on an electronic device, a list of the plurality of first user profiles ordered based upon how many second user profiles within the subset of the second user profile are associated with the respective first user profile.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the search criteria is based on a geographic area.

“3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: presenting, by the server, a profile of at least one second user within the subset of the second user profiles.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the search criteria is based on a business sector associated with at least one of the plurality of first user profiles and the at least one second user profile.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising displaying, by the server, at least one of name, address, phone number, birth place, relationship status, birth date, age, number of children, preferences, habits, skills, or career associated with at least one of the plurality of first user profiles or the at least one second user profile.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the electronic device establishes a communication session with at least one is associated with at least one first user.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of plurality of first user profiles corresponds to a high value target.

“8. The method of claim 1, further comprising, when the server receives an indication that a user has interacted with at least one of the first user profiles, displaying, by the server, a full profile of the at least one first user profile.

“9. A computer system comprising: an electronic device of an agent configured to transmit one or more search criteria to a server; and a server in communication with the electronic device, the server configured to: scan a plurality of social networking sites based on the one or more search criteria received from the electronic device to identify a plurality of first user profiles matching the search criteria; identify at least one second user profile connected to at least one of the plurality of first user profiles using a rich site summary feed associated with the at least one first user profile and the at least one second user profile, wherein the plurality of first user profiles correspond to potentially new customers of the agent’s company; identify a subset of the at least one second user profile that satisfies a threshold, each of the second user profiles corresponding to an existing satisfied customer of the agent’s company; display, on the electronic device, a list of the plurality of first user profiles ordered based upon how many second user profiles within the subset of the second user profile are associated with the respective first user profile.

“10. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the search criteria is based on a geographic area.

“11. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the server is further configured to: present a profile of at least one second user within the subset of the second user profiles.

“12. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the search criteria is based on a business sector associated with at least one of the plurality of first user profiles and the second user profile.

“13. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the server displays at least one of name, address, phone number, birth place, relationship status, birth date, age, number of children, preferences, habits, skills, or career associated with at least one of the first user profiles or the at least one second user profile.

“14. The computer system of claim 9, wherein the electronic device establishes a communication session with at least one is associated with at least one first user.

“15. The computer system of claim 9, wherein at least one of the plurality of first user profiles correspond to a high value target.

“16. The computer system of claim 9, wherein when the server receives an indication that a user has interacted with at least one of the first user profiles, the server displays a full profile of the at least one first user profile.”

For the URL and additional information on this patent, see: Ross, Gareth. Methods and systems for identifying high value targets using social media activity. U.S. Patent Number 11263279, filed November 4, 2019, and published online on March 1, 2022. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=11263279.PN.&OS=PN/11263279RS=PN/11263279

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