How social media conversation influences the market

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March 23, 2021

How social media conversation influences the market

An analysis of the finance industry post-GameStop

There’s no doubt the GameStop saga caused quite a stir within the finance industry and beyond. From a communications perspective, I’d like to reflect on the reputation of the finance industry and what’s changed as a result of the incident. I’d also like to explore the sentiment towards different financial institutions.

It’s important to delineate between investment banks, hedge funds (including HFTs and other obscure finance organisations) and commercial banks. For all the flak that commercial banks get, on the whole, individual banks are pretty good at communicating with consumers, maintaining their reputation and avoiding healthy skepticism turning into outright criticism.

The sentiment around GameStop

Both professionally and personally I am compelled to regularly read the comments under breaking news articles shared on social media, and no matter what the cause or issues, I cannot recall a single story’s response being so absolutely one-sided.

When Isentia did an analysis of social media conversation relating to the GameStop saga, it found 88% of comments expressed an opinion about the topic supported the insurgent Wall Street Bets group. Approximately 50% of comments expressed a clear statement that hedge funds were losing at their own game and deserved no sympathy. The positively gleeful schadenfreude at the losses sustained by the hedge funds unified groups that in any other contexts would be building strawmen to attack each other in a never-ending battle of replies. Commenters in support of Wall St Bets floated conspiracy theories of the Democratic Party’s and Joe Biden’s personal involvement, while others called for the beginning of a socialist revolution. Robinhood closing positions and restricting trading in GME united such disparate voices as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Jr., a potential dinner party for the ages that was cut short by AOC reminding Cruz of his role in the January 6^th Capitol storming.

This reaction shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. Recent real-life examples, like the GFC have built up doubt in financial institutions like hedge funds and investment banks, and cultural representations of these organisations tend to be negative.

Opinions of Wall Street

Looking at Hollywood films about investment bankers and hedge funds, we see a list of negative depictions; The Big Short, Wall Street: Greed is Good, Wolf of Wall Street, Margin Call and American Psycho. Indeed, it’s hard to find a positive depiction of Wall Street and high finance with the possible exception of the Pursuit of Happyness.

Opinions of ‘Wall Street’ in the 2017 US YouGov survey, found that 77% of people believed that “most people on Wall Street would be willing to harm consumers if they believed they could make a lot of money and get away with it”, 72% believed Wall St financiers were more greedy and selfish than regular people. By contrast, in 2018, only 66% of 18-24 year olds and 76% of 25-34 year olds said they have always believed the earth was round. Put another way, you would possibly have more success on social media, arguing for a theory of a flat earth, than you would for the idea that there are ethics on Wall Street.

But none of this is new, those surveys are years old, people still talk about the open wounds of the GFC in 2008 and American Psycho was released in 2000. It may have ebbed and flowed at times, but movements like Occupy Wall Street didn’t feel like a response a single moment, but looked to address long-standing grievances. People have long been cynical about hedge funds and investment banks, and it doesn’t appear much has been done by the industry to improve the situation. Thought pieces on public relations and branding express exasperation with the financial services sector, generally acknowledging early in the text; ‘we know you don’t like it but here’s why you need it’, much like a dentist explaining flossing.

And who could blame hedge funds and investment banks for being ignorant in the modern world of communications? They are non-consumer facing businesses. They don’t have issues like other non-consumer-facing businesses (mining companies) that regularly seek community and environmental project approvals and face a highly organised and powerful climate change movement. They also don’t have an easy story to tell. The mining sector’s blue-collar jobs and regional economies have a more convincing message than providing liquidity to financial markets and diversifying risk.

The power of social media conversation

So if the reputation hasn’t changed why would we suddenly talk about it from a communications perspective? Because the consequences have changed. The power of social media conversation and accessible trading platforms has meant that suddenly the poor reputation of these firms not only makes them a target for activist financial consequences, but also an entirely unsympathetic one (again, 88% of commenters on social media supported the actions of Wall Street Bets, and celebrated hedge fund losses). The question of regulating future market distortions such as GameStop is made politically complicated by this sentiment.

The other thing that’s changed; the messaging is clearer. People often distrusted Wall Street, but the usual attacks of income inequality and regulation tend to be murky and complicated. The frequent usage of the word democratisation is probably the most interesting development in the entire GameStop saga from a communication perspective.

What about regulation?

Anyone who has studied or read about behavioural economics and knows about experiments in the Dictator Game will readily understand there is an innate drive towards fairness in our dealings with others, and perceptions of unfairness encourage us to punish the perpetrators, even if it’s to our own detriment. Thus, generating a clear narrative of unfairness is a powerful tool to generate support for a cause. The traditional attacks of income inequality are often the flagship of anti-Wall Street or anti-finance messaging and are often blurred enough to create a reasonable level of debate. Even if everyone agrees that regulation isn’t working, surveys in the US show deep divides between whether people believe the problem is about not enough regulation, not adequate enforcement of existing regulation, or if it’s the wrong type of regulation. This disagreement makes it difficult to build a clear policy of reform.

Democratisation, however, feels like it is a more powerful and clearer message. Propelled into the limelight most clearly by the actions of Robinhood, it asks a question of fairness that is far harder to obscure or dispute. We can argue whether or not the game is rigged, but no one can deny it’s unfair if you’re not allowed to play.

What’s next for investment banks and hedge funds?

As a communications professional I am interested in the development of the narrative of democratisation and accessibility, and how those who support regulation in the post-GameStop era find ways to attack this sentiment. I am also interested to see how investment banks and hedge funds respond. They’re clearly starting with a difficult story to tell. While none of this has been a problem before, they now need to find a way to communicate with the wider public, particularly young people. They also need to shift a narrative that has existed for decades if not longer. In this partisan era one might avoid consequences from the antipathy of either progressives or conservatives, but the concentrated and focused antipathy of both, united by a simple and powerful message, is something to be concerned about.

Loren Botica

Loren is an experienced marketing professional who translates data and insights using Isentia solutions into trends and research, bringing clients closer to the benefits of audience intelligence. Loren thrives on introducing the groundbreaking ways in which data and insights can help a brand or organisation, enabling them to exceed their strategic objectives and goals.

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At our Taking Back Trust panel, speakers didn’t just agree that public confidence in media, institutions and messaging is shifting. They challenged long-held assumptions about how trust is earned in the first place.

Some framed the current moment as a genuine “trust crisis”. Others saw something more layered, a redefinition of who and what audiences choose to believe. As Monica Attard OAM pointed out, trust in journalism today is shaped by whether audiences feel respected. Not spun, not lied to, not taken for a ride. When news feels ideologically loaded or out of step with what people know to be true, trust quickly erodes.

The panel made it clear that trust isn’t built through repetition. It’s forged through clarity, transparency and context. Two pillars stood out: accessibility and personal relevance. Trust is no longer just about the messenger. It’s about whether the message feels honest, and whether it meets people where they are.

Transparency isn’t optional.

The rise of polarised news and fragmented information ecosystems hasn’t just affected the public. It has reshaped how media outlets themselves think about trust. As John McDuling of Capital Brief noted, earning trust today requires more than getting the story right. It demands openness about how the story was made.

That means being transparent about where information comes from, clearly attributing sources, and acknowledging mistakes. “Correcting errors is a strength, not a weakness,” he said. Vague or thinly sourced reporting, once more easily accepted, no longer cuts through. Trust is now built through precision, accountability, and the willingness to show your work.

The medium is shifting. So is the audience.

Much of the discussion circled back to how audiences are evolving. Younger generations aren’t just consuming news differently, they’re questioning the idea of shared truth altogether. There’s a growing scepticism toward objectivity as a fixed standard. Instead, content that reflects personal experiences and values tends to resonate more.

This shift is most visible on platforms like TikTok and Reddit, which panellists noted as primary news sources for many younger users. People now engage with information on their own terms, often picking up snippets in their feed before diving deeper through Google searches or podcasts. According to Dr Lisa Portolan, this more autonomous style of consumption is changing how trust is formed, and how communication needs to adapt.

She highlighted a broader transformation in the nature of trust itself. For most of human history, trust was built locally. Institutional trust, in government, media, or politics, only became dominant in the last few centuries. Now, technology is redistributing that trust again. People are more likely to believe a peer or content creator than a traditional source. That shift, Portolan said, represents both a degradation of institutional trust and a redefinition of what trust looks like in a decentralised environment.

From a communications perspective, it also means navigating synthetic and AI-driven research with care. When organisations don’t fully understand their audiences, there’s a risk of being misled by artificial signals. The solution, as the panel noted, lies in truly knowing your audience, not just where they are, but how they decide who and what to trust.

AI is already changing the game

If there was one issue that united the panel, it was the urgency around artificial intelligence.

The conversation went beyond newsroom tools or job losses. The focus was trust. Panellists raised concerns about bias in training data, a lack of transparency from AI providers, and the risk of narrowing information loops shaped by commercial deals.

Monica Attard spoke about the dangers of closed systems, where the same sources are surfaced repeatedly, and the need to keep human values at the centre. Relying on technology alone, she said, won’t solve trust issues.

The panel returned to attribution as a key differentiator. As John McDuling noted, one way to stand apart from AI-generated content is to clearly link to original sources, especially those outside commercial LLM training sets. He wasn’t convinced AI would help build trust, at least not yet. These tools always give an answer, even when it’s wrong.

He compared the emerging response to an organic food movement. “You can trust this was generated by humans.” In a more artificial information environment, that may become the most important signal of all.

What’s next

There’s no silver bullet. But across the board, the panel pointed to consistency, transparency, and nuance as essential tools, even when messages are uncomfortable or contested.

Sometimes trust isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about showing up, being clear about your limits, and staying open to scrutiny.

Ngaire Crawford challenged common assumptions about media literacy, pointing out that the problem isn’t confined to young people. In fact, older audiences are often more vulnerable to misinformation because they struggle to navigate the digital information environments around them. The challenge, she said, is not just media literacy, but informational literacy, knowing how to critically assess and access trustworthy content.

From a communications perspective, that calls for vigilance. People want to feel in control of the information they consume. They want to research for themselves, but often can’t find what they need. That gap creates space for misinformation to thrive, and it raises new questions about how information will be surfaced by AI.

The answer? Over-communicate. Provide written sources, supporting detail, and longer-form content where possible. It’s not just about the message or the sound bite. It’s about making sure people have access to the information they need to come to their own conclusions.

Missed the panel?

Watch Taking back trust on demand.

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Blog

The fragile currency of trust: what the panel unpacked

At our Taking Back Trust panel, speakers didn’t just agree that public confidence in media, institutions and messaging is shifting. They challenged long-held assumptions about how trust is earned in the first place. Some framed the current moment as a genuine “trust crisis”. Others saw something more layered, a redefinition of who and what audiences […]

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Across the communications landscape, teams are being asked to do more with less, while staying aligned, responsive and compliant in the face of complex and often shifting stakeholder demands. In that environment, how we track, report and manage our relationships really matters.

In too many organisations, relationship management is still built around tools designed for customer sales. CRM systems, built for structured pipelines and linear user journeys, have long been the default for managing contact databases. They work well for sales and customer service functions. But for communications professionals managing journalists, political offices, internal leaders and external advocates, these tools often fall short.

Stakeholder relationships don’t follow a straight line. They change depending on context, shaped by policy shifts, public sentiment, media narratives or crisis response. A stakeholder may be supportive one week and critical the next. They often hold more than one role, and their influence doesn’t fit neatly into a funnel or metric.

Managing these relationships requires more than contact management. It requires context. The ability to see not just who you spoke to, but why, and what happened next. Communications teams need shared visibility across issues and departments. As reporting expectations grow, that information must be searchable, secure and aligned with wider organisational goals.

What’s often missing is infrastructure. Without the right systems, strategic relationship management becomes fragmented or reactive. Sometimes it becomes invisible altogether.

This is where Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) enters the conversation. Not as a new acronym, but as a different way of thinking about influence.

At Isentia, we’ve seen how a purpose-built SRM platform can help communications teams navigate complexity more confidently. Ours offers a secure, centralised space to log and track every interaction, whether it’s a media enquiry, a ministerial meeting, or a community update, and link it to your team’s broader communications activity.

The aim isn’t to automate relationships. It’s to make them easier to manage, measure and maintain. It’s about creating internal coordination before the external message goes out.

Because in today’s communications environment, stakeholder engagement is not just a support function. It is a strategic capability.

Interested in how other teams are managing their stakeholder relationships? Get in touch at nbt@isentia.com or submit an enquiry.

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SRM vs CRM: which is right for PR & Comms teams?

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