‘Instead of Hype, Would You Like to Hear Real Examples?’: Exploring Blockchain Talk on Twitter

Abstract

This article investigates Twitter posts as an arena of organizations’ impression management. This is done by looking into the ways companies and organizations use this social media platform for establishing an image of competence and expertise around a new technological innovation. We approach this topic through a discourse analysis of 3,033 Finnish language tweets, sent between 2015–2018. These tweets were selected on the basis of including the hashtag #blockchain, which allowed us to explore how organizations and their representatives engaged in “blockchain talk” in the Finnish Twittersphere. Our findings indicate that while this blockchain talk most commonly manifested through news and information dissemination, it was also used to construct expertise and to highlight organizational values. Even organizations that had nothing to do with specific blockchain applications seemed to want to participate in the blockchain talk. In addition to presenting new insights into the online discourse on technological innovation, the study contributes to research on Twitter as a forum for organizational communication.