Abstract

Purpose: This study aims to develop a business strategy by comparing consumers' sentiments on social media such as Facebook and Twitter towards financial and non-financial companies in Saudi Arabia, one of the West Asia countries (normally known also as the Middle East region). Research design, data, and methodology: It uses it to leverage consumer communication in business, then predicts future preferences and the potential sustainability of leading firms to develop a corporate strategy and create competitiveness in this region. This study adopts a data-driven approach using social media data from four companies in the financial and non-financial sectors in Saudi Arabia until October 2020 through sentiment analysis. Results: This study discovers meaningful implications for how consumers' feelings and social media usage behavior in the financial industry differ from the non-financial sector in this region. Conclusions: This research provides an extraordinary power to help companies in emerging markets be innovative and proactive in creating competitiveness by acquiring data on customer sentiment or emotions, finally leveraging business communication, and setting up future strategies based on trend-based insights in West Asia.