The business use of Twitter by Australian listed companies

The rapid rise of the business use of social media platform Twitter by organisations around the world, highlights the need for understanding the degree to which the new communication tool has been adopted, and how it is being used for business purposes. US researchers Case and King (2011) and Heaps (2009) provided important early insight into the business use of Twitter, however, their research was limited to a small sample of listed companies from limited industry sectors in the US. Our study builds on these prior research by extending the research to an Australian context and explores the business use of Twitter by the top 100 Australian ASX (Australian Securities Exchange) listed corporations in 2013. The study used general online search methods to identify that 60 Australian companies (60%) from a variety of industry sectors had adopted the business use of Twitter. A thematic template approach was developed based on the combination of prior research and results from a test pilot analysis. The final template consisted of 11 different business communication purposes. This framework was used to examine the content of the business ‘tweets’ from the 60 companies in order to identify the degree to which Twitter was being used for different business communication purposes, and if industry sectors differed in their business use. The study found that companies had adopted the use of Twitter for a variety of business purposes which differed at the industry level. ‘Corporate Promotion’, ‘Market News’ and ‘Customer Service Enquiries’ were the most popular business purposes for using Twitter. While Consumer Discretionary companies emphasised the use of Twitter for ‘Customer Service Enquiries’, companies from Industrials, Energy and Materials industries were more likely to disclose ‘Financial Reporting’ and ‘Potential Financial Information’. The findings in this paper endorse the validity of the use of Twitter for business communication purposes for all types of organisations, by providing evidence of the number of ASX firms who had adopted the platform, the different industries they represent, and the broad range of business communication purposes being explored. The findings provide normative guidelines for corporations yet to adopt Twitter, or for those seeking to understand how early adopter firms have leveraged a social media technology, in order to reach and communicate with 21st Century audiences.