Tweeting like Elon? Provocative language, new-venture status, and audience engagement on social media

Benedikt David Christian Seigner, Hana Milanov, Erik Lundmark and Dean A. Shepherd

Journal of Business Venturing, 2023, vol. 38, issue 2

Abstract: This article theorizes and empirically investigates how status and provocative language influence audience engagement with new-venture posts on social media platforms. Using venture capital funding as a status proxy, we analyzed 369,142 Twitter posts by 268 new ventures. We found that status (1) increases engagement with ventures' tweets, and that it (2) moderates the effect of provocative language on audience engagement so that provocative language has a negative effect for low-status ventures but a positive effect for high-status ventures. Post-hoc analyses provide a basis for pragmatic theorizing and explore the effects of status tiers and subdimensions of provocative language.

Keywords: Audience engagement; Social media platforms; Provocative language; Status; Venture capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbvent:v:38:y:2023:i:2:s0883902622000945

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2022.106282

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