Movie Aspects, Tweet Metrics, and Movie Revenues : The Influence of iOS vs. Android

Microblogging word of mouth (MWOM) using Twitter has been found to impact the success of experiential products such as movies. However, the influence of the type of device or platform used for tweeting (iOS or Android) on the relationship between well-established tweet metrics – valence, volume, and time period of tweeting – and movie performance is not yet known. Furthermore, it is not known if users of these platforms differ in the aspects of movies they discuss and how that may influence tweet metrics. In this study, we investigated these gaps by analyzing more than four million tweets for 29 movies from both iOS and Android users and conducted a robustness check on another 8 movies. Results from mixed model estimations show that valence of tweets on Android before a movie's release and volume of tweets on iOS after the release significantly influence the revenues of a movie. Results also show that mentions of director and script are more important in the case of Android users whereas mentions of production and music are more important in the case of iOS users. Finally, results show that it may be more productive for movie studios and advertisers to reach the more prolific Twitter users on Android but relatively newer Twitter users on iOS. These findings have significant implications for movie studios as well as mobile advertisers to target their promotions to these platform users accordingly