Can Social Media Interaction and Message Features Influence Nonprofessional Investors' Perceptions of Firms?

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Kipp ◽  
Yibo (James) Zhang ◽  
Amanuel F. Tadesse

ABSTRACT We investigate the impact of social media messages on nonprofessional investors' assessments of management credibility and firm value. In a between-participants experiment, we examine the joint effect of social media message vividness, valence, and micro-blogger influence on nonprofessional investors' assessments of management credibility and firm value. We find that when social media messages are pallid and negative (positive), high micro-blogger influence decreases (increases) nonprofessional investors' assessments of management credibility. In contrast, the effect is absent when messages are vivid. Further, we find that the effect of micro-blogger influence on nonprofessional investors' assessments of blogger credibility and management credibility is mediated by social media interactions. The assessment of management credibility, in turn, significantly impacts nonprofessional investors' firm valuation assessment. The results have implications for regulators (SEC 2013) that may wish to update their guidance to managers on how to monitor or even control nonprofessional investors' interaction on social media platforms. Data Availability: Contact the authors.

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S714-S715
Author(s):  
Jean-Etienne Poirrier ◽  
Theodore Caputi ◽  
John Ayers ◽  
Mark Dredze ◽  
Sara Poston ◽  
...  

Abstract Background A small number of powerful users (“influencers”) dominates conversations on social media platforms: less than 1% of Twitter accounts have at least 3,000 followers and even fewer have hundreds of thousands or millions of followers. Beyond simple metrics (number of tweets, retweets...) little is known about these “influencers”, particularly in relation to their role in shaping online narratives about vaccines. Our goal was to describe influential Twitter accounts that are driving conversations about vaccines and present new metrics of influence. Methods Using publicly-available data from Twitter, we selected posts from 1-Jan-2016 to 31-Dec-2018 and extracted the top 5% of accounts tweeting about vaccines with the most followers. Using automated classifiers, we determined the location of these accounts, and grouped them into those that primarily tweet pro- versus anti-vaccine content. We further characterized the demographics of these influencer accounts. Results From 25,381 vaccine-related tweets available in our sample representing 10,607 users, 530 accounts represented the top 5% by number of followers. These accounts had on average 1,608,637 followers (standard deviation=5,063,421) and 340,390 median followers. Among the accounts for which sentiment was successfully estimated by the classifier, 10.4% (n=55) posted anti-vaccine content and 33.6% (n=178) posted pro-vaccine content. Of the 55 anti-vaccine accounts, 50% (n=18) of the accounts for which location was successfully determined were from the United States. Of the 178 pro-vaccine accounts, 42.5% (n=54) were from the United States. Conclusion This study showed that only a small proportion of Twitter accounts (A) post about vaccines and (B) have a high follower count and post anti-vaccine content. Further analysis of these users may help researchers and policy makers better understand how to amplify the impact of pro-vaccine social media messages. Disclosures Jean-Etienne Poirrier, PhD, MBA, The GSK group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Theodore Caputi, PhD, Good Analytics Inc. (Consultant) John Ayers, PhD, GSK (Grant/Research Support) Mark Dredze, PhD, Bloomberg LP (Consultant)Good Analytics (Consultant) Sara Poston, PharmD, The GlaxoSmithKline group of companies (Employee, Shareholder) Cosmina Hogea, PhD, GlaxoSmithKline (Employee, Shareholder)


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Kenneth Henrie ◽  
Christian Gilde

One communication approach that lately has become more common is astroturfing, which has been more prominent since the proliferation of social media platforms. In this context, astroturfing is a fake grass-roots political campaign that aims to manipulate a certain audience. This exploratory research examined how effective astroturfing is in mitigating citizens’ natural defenses against politically persuasive messages. An experimental method was used to examine the persuasiveness of social media messages related to coal energy in their ability to persuade citizens’, and increase their level of nationalism. The results suggest that citizens are more likely to be persuaded by an astroturfed message than people who are exposed to a non-astroturfed message, regardless of their political leanings. However, the messages were not successful in altering an individual’s nationalistic views at the moment of exposure. The authors discuss these findings and propose how in a long-term context, astroturfing is a dangerous addition to persuasive communication.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 1526-1549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salim Chahine ◽  
Naresh K. Malhotra

Purpose Social media have recently become an important strategic marketing tool to increase firm value. Based on an integrated theoretical framework, this study aims to examine the market reaction at the time of the creation of a Twitter platform for 312 firms from the Fortune 500 firms. Design/methodology/approach To test the hypotheses related to the effect of social media platforms on firm value, the event history analysis (EHA) was used, also known as event study, usually designed to examine the impact of a historical phenomenon for the US Fortune 500 firms that developed a Twitter platform. Findings A significant market reaction was found around the starting date of Twitter activities for the subsample of firms that are not contaminated by any other corporate announcements, but not for the overall sample. The market reaction is higher for firms with two-way interaction strategies rather than one-way messaging in both the uncontaminated subsample and the overall sample. It is higher in smaller firms, firms with losses and those with a family and/or a dominant shareholder. Further, firms in the contaminated subsample are likely to follow a two-way strategy after a positive revision of their earnings per share. We have run several robustness checks, including cross-validation on a holdout sample, and these findings remain consistent. Research limitations/implications The integrated theoretical framework is another significant contribution. To our knowledge, this is the first study across disciplines that integrates the social exchange theory (SET), social representation theory (SRT), social network analysis (SNA), social identity theory (SIT), signaling theory (ST) and the impression management theory (IMT) into one framework that is built around information as a resource and social interaction. Practical implications The results suggest that Twitter can be used to add value if firms interact and reciprocate with the various stakeholders. Social implications Firms using social media must interact and reciprocate with the various stakeholders. Originality/value This research is different than the published research on this topic in that it examines the impact on stock prices of the introduction of a specific social media platform, i.e. Twitter. The present results of the paper add to the prior research on database marketing and show that marketing “with” the customer is adding more value than marketing “to” the customer. The use of the net extends the scope of database marketing into a certain form of interaction marketing with “face-to-face” interaction within the relationships between the firm and its customers. Finally, the conditions under which social media platforms are used in an interactive manner are shown, and depicts that firms are more likely to use a two-way interactive strategy following a one-year period of positive momentum.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002224292110021
Author(s):  
Alireza Golmohammadi ◽  
Taha Havakhor ◽  
Dinesh K. Gauri ◽  
Johann Joseph Comprix

Firms are increasingly turning to social media platforms for complaint handling. Past research and practitioners’ reports highlight the benefits of complaint handling on social media, urging firms to provide prompt and detailed responses to complaints. However, little research has explored the possible drawbacks of such practices, especially when responses inadvertently further publicize complaints. Utilizing two unique data sets in a series of observational and quasi-experimental analyses, this research provides the first evidence of complaint publicization in social media, a phenomenon in which firm responses to complaints on popular social media platforms increase the potential public exposure of complaints. This negative effect can outweigh any positive customer care-signaling impact from firm responses. The authors show that a response strategy that engenders a high level of complaint publicization – e.g., providing detailed responses through multiple communication exchanges with a complainant – could negatively impact perceived quality and firm value, diminish the positive impact of a firm’s own posts, and increase the volume of future complaints. Additional analyses reveal that these adverse impacts are stronger for firms that are targeted by retail investors. The authors also uncover specific response strategies and styles that could mitigate these effects.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Hughes ◽  
Rachael Hunter

BACKGROUND Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin condition, which can be affected by stress. Living with psoriasis can trigger negative emotions, which may influence quality of life. OBJECTIVE This study explored the experiences of people with psoriasis with attention to the potential role of anger in the onset and progression of the chronic skin condition. METHODS Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with twelve participants (n=5 females, n=7 males) recruited online from an advert on a patient charity’s social media platforms. Data were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. RESULTS Four key themes were identified: (1) ‘I get really angry with the whole situation:’ anger at the self and others, (2) the impact of anger on psoriasis: angry skin, (3) shared experiences of distress, and (4) moving past anger to affirmation. CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that anger can have a perceived impact on psoriasis through contributing to sensory symptoms and unhelpful coping cycles and point to a need for enhanced treatment with more psychological support. The findings also highlight the continued stigma which exists for people living with skin conditions and how this may contribute to, and sustain, anger for those individuals. Future research could usefully focus on developing targeted psychosocial interventions to promote healthy emotional coping with psoriasis.


Author(s):  
Jedidiah Carlson ◽  
Kelley Harris

AbstractEngagement with scientific manuscripts is frequently facilitated by Twitter and other social media platforms. As such, the demographics of a paper’s social media audience provide a wealth of information about how scholarly research is transmitted, consumed, and interpreted by online communities. By paying attention to public perceptions of their publications, scientists can learn whether their research is stimulating positive scholarly and public thought. They can also become aware of potentially negative patterns of interest from groups that misinterpret their work in harmful ways, either willfully or unintentionally, and devise strategies for altering their messaging to mitigate these impacts. In this study, we collected 331,696 Twitter posts referencing 1,800 highly tweeted bioRxiv preprints and leveraged topic modeling to infer the characteristics of various communities engaging with each preprint on Twitter. We agnostically learned the characteristics of these audience sectors from keywords each user’s followers provide in their Twitter biographies. We estimate that 96% of the preprints analyzed are dominated by academic audiences on Twitter, suggesting that social media attention does not always correspond to greater public exposure. We further demonstrate how our audience segmentation method can quantify the level of interest from non-specialist audience sectors such as mental health advocates, dog lovers, video game developers, vegans, bitcoin investors, conspiracy theorists, journalists, religious groups, and political constituencies. Surprisingly, we also found that 10% of the highly tweeted preprints analyzed have sizable (>5%) audience sectors that are associated with right-wing white nationalist communities. Although none of these preprints intentionally espouse any right-wing extremist messages, cases exist where extremist appropriation comprises more than 50% of the tweets referencing a given preprint. These results present unique opportunities for improving and contextualizing research evaluation as well as shedding light on the unavoidable challenges of scientific discourse afforded by social media.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Evelina Francisco ◽  
Nadira Fardos ◽  
Aakash Bhatt ◽  
Gulhan Bizel

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting stay-at-home orders have disrupted all aspects of life globally, most notably our relationship with the internet and social media platforms. People are online more than ever before, working and attending school from home and socializing with friends and family via video conferencing. Marketers and brands have been forced to adapt to a new normal and, as a result, have shifted their brand communication and marketing mix to digital approaches. Hence, this study aims to examine the shift of influencer marketing on Instagram during this period and the possible future implications. By employing an online survey for exploratory research, individuals answered questions addressing their perceptions about the impact of the pandemic, brands and influencers’ relationship, and the overall changes made in marketing strategy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-11
Author(s):  
Wayne W. L. Chan ◽  

The legal authorities, particularly the police force, have been increasingly facing challenges given the popularity of social media [1, 2]. However, we know very little about how public perceptions of the police are being shaped by social media. In this context, this study attempted to investigate the impact of social media on young people’s perceptions of the police in Hong Kong. The focus of this study was placed on Facebook since it was one of the most popular social media platforms in the city. Facebook was not only conceptualized as a communication medium but also a social networking arena. In this connection, qualitative individual interviews were conducted to explore the online social networking on Facebook and its relation to the perceptions of police force. It was found that the Facebook users who were more likely to stay closely connected with other users with similar views would tend to form the politicized perception of police force. On the other hand, the Facebook users who were to be networked with some other users or real persons with dissimilar views would hold more neutral perceptions of the police. This study was the first of its kind to investigate the role of online social networking in the perceptions of the police, thus filling an important gap in our knowledge of the increasing impact of social media. Therefore, the results of current study were expected to contribute to society by avoiding the disproportionate public discourse about law and order. Keywords: Social Media, Online Social Networking, Public Perception, Police Force.


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