The Impact of Traditional Media on Social Media in the Financial Services Industry

In many studies the impact of social media on various brand, customer and financial performance metrics has been shown. The research question what drives social media chatter and whether a company has a chance to steer chatter is left unexplored so far. Therefore the empirical study at hand explores the relationship between traditional media and social media chatter, and shows that traditional media do have an impact on social media. Moreover it can be stated that especially social news related to corporate social responsibility and not functional news associated with corporate ability influence the valence of social media chatter. This is shown by analysing a unique dataset of five major brands in the financial services industry in the German market.