The Impact of Pfizer's Social Media Engagement During COVID-19

Platania, Federico; Hernandez, Celina Toscano; Appio, Francesco; Mora, Luca

Abstract

The aim of this article is to study the impact of social media engagement and public attention on Pfizer during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study focuses on Twitter to investigate Pfizer's social media activity and engagement during the pandemic. We analyze different social media engagement metrics, such as conversation rates, speed of information diffusion, and public approval ratings. In addition, we use Google Trends to track changes in public attention toward pandemic-related keywords like “COVID-19” and “COVID-19 booster shot” and examine their relationship with Pfizer's stock returns. Our findings suggest that social media engagement during the pandemic had a significant positive impact on Pfizer's returns. Furthermore, we show that, while high levels of public attention toward COVID-19 and COVID-19 booster shot negatively impact Pfizer's returns, social media engagement has a positive incremental effect on the company's returns during periods of heightened public attention.

Citation

Platania, F., Hernandez, C. T., Appio, F., & Mora, L. (in press). The Impact of Pfizer's Social Media Engagement During COVID-19. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, https://doi.org/10.1109/tem.2023.3290699

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 22, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jul 14, 2023
• Deposit Date: Aug 29, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 8, 2023
• Journal: IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
• Print ISSN: 0018-9391
• Electronic ISSN: 1558-0040
• Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/tem.2023.3290699
• Keywords: Pharmaceuticals, information and communication technology, pandemics, share prices