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Social Media and Small Entrepreneurial Firms’ Internationalization

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Understanding Social Media and Entrepreneurship

Part of the book series: Exploring Diversity in Entrepreneurship ((EDE))

Abstract

Small entrepreneurial firms often need to be quite creative when allocating and deploying their limited resources. Especially in grasping international opportunities, social media provides a seemingly affordable and far-reaching medium. However, challenges—such as the controllability of the content and the outcomes of using social media—become apparent as the reach of social media marketing expands beyond certain threshold limits. In this study, we rely on data from multiple case studies to evaluate to what extent and under which conditions social media can support small entrepreneurial firms’ international expansion. Thereby, we contribute to research on SME internationalization and business implications of digitalization. Our findings indicate that small entrepreneurial firms face somewhat different social media–related challenges in the international business environment compared to domestic settings. The controllability of the contents comes with new tones. Furthermore, small firms’ resources, both in terms of social media use and in different functions, play an important role in determining the extent to which the use of social media supports these firms’ internationalization.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Professor Tanja Leppäaho, Professor Olli Kuivalainen, and Professor Jorma Larimo for their valuable insights into an earlier version of the results, Editor Professor Leon Schjoedt for his helpful advice, and the Foundation for Economic Education for their financial support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oulu, Oulu Business School, Oulu, Finland

    Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen & Lauri Haapanen

  2. University of Oulu, Oulu Business School/Duunitori Oy, Helsinki, Finland

    Saara Holma

Authors
  1. Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen
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  2. Lauri Haapanen
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  3. Saara Holma
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pia Hurmelinna-Laukkanen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Babson College, Wellesley Hills, MA, USA

    Leon Schjoedt

  2. School of Business and Economics, Åbo Akademi University, Åbo, Turku, Finland

    Malin E. Brännback

  3. School of Business and Economics, Åbo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Alan L. Carsrud

Appendix: Data Analysis (cf. Fig. 8.2)

Appendix: Data Analysis (cf. Fig. 8.2)

Quotes from data

First-order concepts

Second-order themes

Aggregate dimensions

“…today any brand can be global since end users are global, borders have faded away long time ago”

International expansion

Nature of customer base

Buying behavior

“…we decided to have separate Facebook and Instagram for our cafes in order not disturb our foreign followers with these posts … [different markets] require localization … making internationalization not that easy”

“… next year we will put more effort to foreign campaigns to enhance sales, in particular in Germany”

International activity

  

“…we had … four to five requests weekly from all over the world …”

Customer contacts

Enlargement of customer base

 

“…The risk is [social media] that I will sell and empty my stock and there is nothing to deliver our distributors”

“It does not make sense to start increasing demand until there are products to be delivered”

“…if only we have stock…we would have an event…”

Production challenges

Visibility/awareness risks

Market awareness

“…an extensive grapevine effect, which we need to control … we cannot be sure that we follow all on-going discussions and moreover, there are discussions in many other places in which we have no control over.”

“…but we get an unbelievable amount of contact requests… there are so many networks…”

Uncontrollability

  

“…we need to be cautious … if you make a claim in the social media that is incorrect, you soon ruin your image”

Wrong/false information

  

“…for sure on daily basis we need to work on this.”

“… bad news travel fast”

Speed

  

“possible to reach a lot of people within a short time”

“…we had very fast a lot of followers in social media”

“…world wide reach, definitely”

Wide reach

Marketing/promotion-related gains

 

“Very important for brand visibility”

“…every day we can tell our story”

“It is very good that we have a channel where to communicate… We have seen that [posts] receive a lot of likes

Visibility

  

“… we use social media as a complementary marketing media, and also in order to interact with the customers”

“… I think it really is the interaction with the customer interface that is very valuable, from the ivory tower it is very difficult to do this, we need to know what people really think about our products”

“…if someone posts us, we do open the dialogue…”

Interactivity

  

“…the dealers without physical stores… you kind of create the customer streams to both sides”

“…we spend hours and hours sitting at the bar counters with our distributors”

“this is a network business, and we need to be there”

Networking/dealers and potential customers

Expansion of effective resources

Social media

“…small firm with a small budget”

“In social media… there is reasonable cost in trying to reach even larger target groups”

“lowering the costs”

Affordability

  

“…information drifts to us from all over the world”

“At any time, we can ask the barrel owners if we need further information, for example, on making whiskey”

“… it is extremely important to learn if there are any weak spots, any specific problems, any wishes where to place logos, etc. … people has accepted our products well, and as a token, they provide us with lengthy messages”

“… you get feedback all the time and you need to study it constantly and react to it”

Market knowledge

  

“… we use social media as a complementary marketing media, and also in order to interact with the customers”

“…we do not rely solely on digital marketing. One has to be versatile what comes to the use of marketing media…

Role in marketing

Social media use

 

“… Facebook is the main channel…Instagram and Twitter”

“We need to use different channels, we can’t rely on one channel reaching people in every country”

(Multi)channel approach

  

“…to dedicate one person solely in digital marketing feels from time to time a big investment”

“…we do not have too much time to spend on social media … a small firm has a small marketing budget, gaining a visibility is more challenging for a small firm compared to a large counterpart”

“… having such social media … tempt users with emotionally attractive contents, this really requires delving, time and money”

Resource requirements

Resources allocated for social media

 

“…We do see all the possibilities to communicate using customers’ own language … the workload is not in balance with the possible benefits”

“We wish to provide this to Europeans in their own languages”

“Different channels for different countries – not yet anyway…we would need employees for that”

Activity type

  

“… it has brought some sensitivity in marketing.. you need to be pretty careful”

Experiences

Learning as a means to develop social media use

Learning

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Hurmelinna-Laukkanen, P., Haapanen, L., Holma, S. (2020). Social Media and Small Entrepreneurial Firms’ Internationalization. In: Schjoedt, L., Brännback, M.E., Carsrud, A.L. (eds) Understanding Social Media and Entrepreneurship. Exploring Diversity in Entrepreneurship. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43453-3_8

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