More Tweets, More Money? Gender Differences in Harnessing Social Media for Crowdfunding Campaigns

Abstract

Crowdfunding has the potential to democratize access to financing, especially among women entrepreneurs. This paper examines whether social media activity provides an advantage for women entrepreneurs in raising funding from crowds. The results of our study, based on tracking the daily fundraising and social media activity for a sample of 11409 campaigns launched in Kickstarter, show that social media is beneficial in crowdfunding efforts for all entrepreneurs, even more so for women entrepreneurs. Our theoretical discussions implicitly attribute this finding to the role of social media in broadening the social connections of women entrepreneurs and also in diffusing electronic word-of-mouth information that alters investors’ perceptions about legitimacy of women entrepreneurs, which views entrepreneurship as a masculine-typed endeavor that women are incapable of successfully undertaking. The broader implications of this research are to address the influence of social media in helping mobilize resources for entrepreneurs.