Enhancing financial performance with social media: An impression management perspective

The growing plethoras of social media outlets have sparked both opportunity and concern in how organizations manage their corporate image. While previous research has examined the various problems associated with negative, word-of-mouth transference of information occurring simultaneously throughout many networks in social media, this paper seeks to address social media usage in impression management (IM). Specifically, we seek to answer two questions: Do IM direct-assertive strategies in social media impact a firm's financial performance? And which social media strategies impact a firm's financial performance? To analyze these questions in depth, we use text mining to collect and analyze text from a variety of social network platforms, including blogs, forums, and corporate websites, to assess how such IM strategies impact financial performance. Our results provide text mining validation that social media have a positive impact on IM. We also provide further understanding of how social media strengthens organizations' communication with various internal and external stakeholders. Lastly, we provide future research ideas concerning social media's usage in IM.

► Text mining shows the relationship between social media use and performance.
► Social media use generally positively impacts financial performance.
► Support for the association between impression management and financial performance.