Authors
Maria Petrova, Ananya Sen, Pinar Yildirim
Publication date
2020/5/14
Journal
Management Science, forthcoming
Description
Political campaigns are among the most sophisticated marketing exercises in the United States. As part of their marketing communication strategy, an increasing number of politicians adopt social media to inform their constituencies. This study documents the returns from adopting a new technology, namely Twitter, for politicians running for Congress by focusing on the change in campaign contributions received. We compare weekly donations received just before and just after a politician opens a Twitter account in regions with high and low levels of Twitter penetration, controlling for politician-month fixed effects. Specifically, over the course of a political campaign, we estimate that the differential effect of opening a Twitter account in regions with high versus low levels of Twitter penetration amounts to an increase of 0.7%–2% in donations for all politicians and 1%–3.1% for new politicians who were never elected to …
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