School of Business

How do the content, format, and tone of Twitter-based corporate disclosure vary depending on earnings performance?

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Using 86,891 tweets, from the official corporate Twitter accounts of 715 unique firms, this study examines whether and how managers strategically attract and distract investors’ attention from corporate news through Twitter. We find that firms with good earnings news use Twitter to post more earnings-related information directly, whereas firms with bad earnings news post more non-earnings-related information on Twitter. We further find that depending on earnings performance firms strategically choose the format of tweets (qualitative or quantitative) and the tone of earnings tweets (positive or negative) to attract investors’ attention to good news or distract investors’ attention from bad news. Our results are robust to difference-in-differences (DID), alternative sample periods, and different variable specifications. Our findings provide empirical evidence for investors and regulators regarding current practices in corporate information on Twitter.

Publication Title

International Journal of Accounting Information Systems

Publication Date

12-2022

Volume

47

ISSN

1467-0895

DOI

10.1016/j.accinf.2022.100574

Keywords

social media, strategic disclosure, Twitter

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