An Empirical Investigation on Social Media Users' Demand for Financial Information Distributed via Social Media Platforms

Managers feel significant pressure to establish a social media presence that differentiates their organization from rivals, though few managers feel confident that their organization provides social media users with the information they desire. Thus, while the supply of information provided to social media users by organizations continues to proliferate rapidly, few studies have investigated the information social media users want organizations to provide. This study explores the information desires of two social media user groups: non-professional investors and non-investors. We create and validate a social media information content taxonomy using data from three experiments, finding that the information desires of both groups are relatively similar. Specifically, social media users primarily want organizations to provide them with information that addresses them as customers and nonprofessional investors desire financial information more than non-investors. Across platforms, Facebook is the platform most closely associated with organizational social media communications.