ANALYSIS OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EWOM ON SOCIAL MEDIA FOR COMPANIES

In recent years, social media have changed online communication. People share their views on individual companies as well as reviews of various products, and actively engage in discussions. Communication that spreads in this way is referred to as eWOM. The question is how important eWOM on social media can be for companies and what we can conclude based on eWOM. This research study aims to evaluate the significance of eWOM for companies in terms of the connection between eWOM and stock prices. Further, we explore the impact of eWOM on company website traffic. The research was conducted using a sample of 1,420,000 posts on social media sites mentioning companies that make up the components of the US30 stock market index. The results show that companies in the B2C segment with a higher share of positive posts compared to negative ones have seen a greater increase in stock prices. However, posts on social media mentioning companies in the B2B segment are not connected to the movement of stock prices of these companies. The research also revealed that 3 % of the total traffic on companies’ websites comes from social media sites. Based on the findings of the research, we can consider eWOM to be of major significance for companies in the B2C segment. These conclusions can be useful in predicting stock prices of particular companies on stock markets based on eWOM.