How Large Information Technology Companies Use Twitter: Arrangement of Corporate Accounts and Characteristics of Tweets

Abstract

Twitter is widely used by companies to reach various stakeholders, but how they use this social media platform is still unclear. To investigate how companies use Twitter, this study analyzes the content of the Twitter accounts of four large information technology companies, focusing on the arrangement of different Twitter accounts and on message characteristics (content, message elements, and communication strategies). The results show that companies used architectures of different Twitter accounts to serve various stakeholder groups. The companies’ tweets covered diverse topics within the corporate, marketing, and technical communication domains. The tweets focused more on providing information and promoting action than on facilitating dialogue.