An Efficient Network-aware Direct Search Method for Influence MaximizationMatteo Bergamaschi, Sara Venturini, Francesco Tudisco, Francesco Rinaldihttps://arxiv.org/abs/2508.12164
An Efficient Network-aware Direct Search Method for Influence MaximizationInfluence Maximization (IM) is a pivotal concept in social network analysis, involving the identification of influential nodes within a network to maximize the number of influenced nodes, and has a wide variety of applications that range from viral marketing and information dissemination to public health campaigns. IM can be modeled as a combinatorial optimization problem with a black-box objective function, where the goal is to select $B$ seed nodes that maximize the expected influence spread.…