The Impact of Unauthorized and Fake Social Medial Profiles on the Financial Performance of Top US-Based and International Companies
Location
CSU Ballroom
Start Date
16-4-2013 10:00 AM
End Date
16-4-2013 12:00 PM
Student's Major
Management
Student's College
Business
Mentor's Name
Queen Booker
Mentor's Department
Management
Mentor's College
Business
Description
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram are all popular social media networking sites. Companies use these sites to communicate with existing and potential customers to increase brand awareness and positively impact their image. So when unauthorized pages for companies are created, “these pages can make it difficult for consumers to find the official brand page, damage the brands, and even create liability for the brand owner.” (PR Newswire, 2011). Despite the knowledge that these fake pages can harm companies, no research was found that measures the actual financial impact of these fake sites on companies. This exploratory study is a step towards measuring that impact. The study uses four independent binary variables: US-based (1) versus international (0), airline industry (1) versus other (0), whether there was a hoax (1) or not (0), and if the hoax was on a major social media site, such as Facebook and Twitter (1) versus minor social media site, such as Instagram and Google+ (0) with major versus minor defined by the number of active users. The dependent variable tested will be the financial performance of the company for the prior year compared to the current year as normalized by the S&P performance and measured if the performance is higher or the same than the previous year (0) or lower (1). The expected outcome is that while the impact may not be large, there should be a measurable decline in financial performance.
The Impact of Unauthorized and Fake Social Medial Profiles on the Financial Performance of Top US-Based and International Companies
CSU Ballroom
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram are all popular social media networking sites. Companies use these sites to communicate with existing and potential customers to increase brand awareness and positively impact their image. So when unauthorized pages for companies are created, “these pages can make it difficult for consumers to find the official brand page, damage the brands, and even create liability for the brand owner.” (PR Newswire, 2011). Despite the knowledge that these fake pages can harm companies, no research was found that measures the actual financial impact of these fake sites on companies. This exploratory study is a step towards measuring that impact. The study uses four independent binary variables: US-based (1) versus international (0), airline industry (1) versus other (0), whether there was a hoax (1) or not (0), and if the hoax was on a major social media site, such as Facebook and Twitter (1) versus minor social media site, such as Instagram and Google+ (0) with major versus minor defined by the number of active users. The dependent variable tested will be the financial performance of the company for the prior year compared to the current year as normalized by the S&P performance and measured if the performance is higher or the same than the previous year (0) or lower (1). The expected outcome is that while the impact may not be large, there should be a measurable decline in financial performance.
Recommended Citation
Nestrud, Jeffrey. "The Impact of Unauthorized and Fake Social Medial Profiles on the Financial Performance of Top US-Based and International Companies." Undergraduate Research Symposium, Mankato, MN, April 16, 2013.
https://cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/urs/2013/poster-session-A/49
