SOCIAL MEDIA AND AUDIT FIRMS: IS SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE CORRELATED WITH BETTER FINANCIAL RESULTS?

Abstract

The omnipresence of social media has significantly influenced and shaped contemporary businesses. Online presence has become one of the main prerequisites for survival and success of companies in a dynamic and competitive environment. Digital presence and image of a company in online marketplace has become much more important than ever before. The aforementioned was especially pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic when the period was marked by social distancing of people in their physical environment. Interestingly, social distancing ultimately led to the increased use of the Internet in conducting everyday personal and professional activities. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First purpose is to investigate social media presence of audit firms in Serbia. The second purpose is to analyze correlation between the financial performance of audit firms and their social media metrics during the COVID-19 pandemic. The contribution of this paper is to investigate to what extent Serbian audit firms use social networks for promoting their consulting and auditing services, with the purpose of attracting new clients. Results show that audit firms that belong to international networks are significantly more present on social media, while approximately 80% of domestic audit firms in Serbia are not present on the observed social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Regarding profitability, results show that there is a high statistically significant correlation between EBITDA and observed metrics of Linkedin and Instagram social networks.