Abstract
Together, social media and crowdsourcing can help entrepreneurs to attract external finance and early-stage customers. This paper investigates the characteristics and discourse of an issue-centered public on Twitter organized around the hashtag #crowdfunding through the lens of social network theory. Using a dataset of 2,732,144 tweets published during a calendar year, we use exploratory data analysis to generate insights and hypotheses on who the users in the #crowdfunding network are, what they share, and how they are connected to each other. In order to do so, we adopt a range of descriptive, content, network analytics techniques. The results suggest that platforms, crowdfunders, and other actors who derive income from the crowdfunding economy play a key role in creating the network. Furthermore, latent ties (strangers) play a direct role in disseminating information, investing, and sending signals to platforms that further raises campaign prominence. We also introduce a new type of social tie, the “computer as a social actor”, previously unaddressed in entrepreneurial network literature, which play a role in sending signals to both platforms and networks. Our results suggest that homophily is a key driver for creating network sub-communities built around specific platforms, project types, domains, or geography.
Highlights
It is widely accepted that social media has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on how individuals and organizations engage with each other
The aim of this paper is to investigate the network characteristics of an issue-centered public on Twitter organized around the hashtag #crowdfunding for the calendar year 2014 through the lens of social network theory
The low level of cohesion can be attributed to the presence of many users with a very low level of engagement further supporting the bystander effect noted by Borst et al [37]
Summary
It is widely accepted that social media has had, and continues to have, a profound impact on how individuals and organizations engage with each other. Instead of raising funds from a small group of professional or sophisticated investors, firms obtain small amounts of money from a large number of individuals, typically non-professional i.e., the “crowd” [4,13]. In this way, crowdfunding is a two-sided market that links capital-seekers (crowdfunders) and capital-givers (investors) enabled by a crowdfunding intermediary (platforms) [14,15]. The economic model for these platforms is typically a commission based on funds raised or donations received [17] These platforms cater for a wide range of projects, including products, experience goods, and social initiatives [9,18,19]
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