Adoption of Digital Collaborative Networking Platforms in Companies: A Study of Twitter Usage in Finland

Abstract

Digital collaborative networking platforms have become increasingly important for companies. They are widely used for communication and co-creation with customers, suppliers and other actors in companies’ value chains. This study takes one social media platform: Twitter, as an example of a digital collaboration platform and analyses patterns of Twitter usage among Finnish companies. The empirical part of the study is based on survey data (n=554 companies) and Twitter usage data of 107 of the same companies. The research data is analyzed to find the extent to which companies have adopted Twitter and for what purposes it is being used. The results of the study show that surprisingly few companies have a Twitter account and most commonly companies use Twitter to communicate about news and events to the large public. Hence, plenty of opportunities remain for taking social media platforms more efficiently in use for collaborative networking and co-creation.