Social Media Followers and Organizational Performance

Abstract

We study the implications of growth in social media communities built around an organization or its products on performance. Using follower communities of television shows on Twitter and Nielsen viewership ratings as a performance measure to test our theory, we find that doubling the number of new members of the show's community is associated with a ratings increase between 1.2% and 9.8%. The effect is more pronounced for products that engender a higher intensity of interest; among those products the value is higher when the community size is smaller. For products that engender lower intensities of interest, the value of new members is higher when the community size is larger. Our results suggest that social media communities add value beyond levels of interaction and buzz around a product.