ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL MEDIA UTILIZATION AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF BIST-100 INDEX COMPANIES: TWITTER EXAMPLE

Abstract

The relationship between the use of Twitter by companies, a social media tool, and their financial performance was examined. Between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2020, companies listed in BIST 100 during that same period, companies included in the Fortune 500 and their financial data, as well as the use of the aforementioned social media tool and the number of shares were used as datasets. All Twitter posts were scanned using the content analytics method, within the date range determined by considering the limitations of the research. The aforementioned shared tweets, companies' turnover, export figures, etc. In compiling the data of 36 companies, with the help of Python, a general-purpose programming language, a software-based model was created to collect data from the Twitter database via the googlecolab platform. In addition, in the review of the writings; we have seen that the analyzes generally made are limited to one fiscal year, and when it is evaluated that 98,805 tweets belonging to 36 companies covering the years 2009-2020 are analyzed in detail, no study with a similar scope has been found. To study the relationship between the use of Twitter and the financial performance of companies in the BIST-100 index, a normality test was conducted with Kolmogorov Smirnov test and the distribution was found not suitable for normal distribution. Spearman's correlation analysis was performed because the variables did not match the normal distribution. As a result of the tests and analyzes applied, a weak positive relationship was found between net sales, the number of employees and the number of shares, and a very weak positive relationship between the export amount and the number of shares. No correlation was found between the number of shares and the variables of profit before interest and tax, total assets and amount of equity.