Social Media Initial Public Offerings (IPOs). Failure and Success Factors

Social media organizations have increasingly tapped public stock markets, yet – despite their undisputed public appeal and improving economics – the success of several high-profile IPOs has been rather lackluster. This paper revisits the going-public strategies of leading international social media stocks and identifies their failure and success factors from the operating, commercial and behavioral perspectives. Among the companies covered by the research are the top components of the Solactive Social Media (Total Return) Index (SOCL): widely perceived as the most globally representative benchmark of exchange listed social media equities (including Facebook, Inc., Tencent Holdings Ltd., Sina Corp., LinkedIn Corp., Pandora Media, Inc., Groupon, Inc., Yandex Nv, Dena Co. Ltd., Google Inc. and Zynga Inc.) as well as selected recent IPOs (including Twitter, Inc.). The paper tracts the origins of the social media companies, their IPO decisions as well as their flotation and aftermarket performance. The analysis leads to conclusions and recommendations relating to future social media IPO scenarios (with particular emphasis on prerequisites of successful IPO management with regard to social media initiatives). Given the novelty and limited record of most social media public flotations, the paper represents a pioneering research effort aimed at explaining the utility of the IPO route for the global social media industry.