Social media and investment firms in Turkey

Abstract

Social media has become an important aspect of finance in the past few years and all reputable firms like to present themselves in social media, because it implies a corporate identity from the investors' point of view. Especially for generation Y and millennials who are born to the age of internet, social media has become a way of life. It is also the key of life for corporations that want to reach these generations as a part of their client portfolio. The aim of this paper is to investigate the social media presence of Turkish intermediary institutions and figure out whether these institutions have managed to make an online impression and whether this impression has taken an effect on the financial front for these firms by analyzing related income and other related indicators such as client complaints as well as taking into account the strategies involving Istanbul Financial Center Project (IFC). Data belonging to a total of 66 intermediary institutions are collected and independent t-test and parametric and nonparametric correlations analyses are applied to data. According to analysis results there is a significant relationship between social media presence of intermediary institutions and authorization certificate types of these institutions, forex income and the number of client complaints. Location of intermediary institutions is found not to be significant, opposite of suggested by IFC. Only half of Turkish intermediary institutions are found to be effectively present in social media. This unwillingness of intermediary institutions limits the promotion of finance sector and contradicts the IFC project.