The Influence of Influencers: How Twitter Groups Affect Company Performance
Open Access
Author:
Scott, Ryan
Area of Honors:
Management Information Systems (Behrend)
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Babajide James Osatuyi, Thesis Supervisor Matthew Swinarski, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Social Media Influencer Marketing Twitter Sentiment Stock Company Financial Performance Google Trends
Abstract:
Social media has increasingly grown in use by individuals and corporations to disperse messages. Recently, organizations have relied on social media influencers to attempt to improve brand performance and awareness. This work investigates the extent to which Twitter users, including influencers, average consumers, and companies describe and predict company performance across several industries. Sentiment polarity (positive, neutral, or negative) is being investigated against stock pricing and indexed search engine volume (Google Trends) to determine the extent of the relationship. Granger Causality tests were utilized to determine the direction of lag between variables. The paper finds that there exists a consistent, significant positive correlation between influencers’ feelings about brands on Twitter and Google Search volume across all industries.