The use of social media in entrepreneurship

This course made me question why social media is important in entrepreneurship. To find more information about this topic I searched for an article which confirms this statement. The article ‘social networks and entrepreneurship’ by Greve and Salaff (2003) gave me a new point of view about the use of social media in entrepreneurship. The article stated that social relations play an important role in establishing a firm. They defined 3 phases (phase 1: motivation, phase 2: planning, phase 3a: establishment phase 3b taking over a firm) in which different kind of social media is necessary. They also investigated the difference between different countries and the use of social media. However, this had no influence on the results. Somehow, I thought this would be a difference.  They also stated that in phase 1 the social network is smaller than in phase 2 and that that phase 1 spend the least amount of time developing social networks. Phase 2 spends the most time developing networks.  They concluded that entrepreneurs who consider starting a firm want a protected environment to discuss their ideas. Therefore, entrepreneurs in Phase limit their discussions to their closest relations. However, the increased number of activities in Phase 2 make the social network increase. At that crucial point, efforts at building and maintaining contacts are highest and they spend a lot of time investing in the social network. In Phase 3, entrepreneurs reduce the size of their social networks to important, helpful members, and spend less time networking. I thought it was quite interesting to see the influence of social media in the different phases of establishing an entrepreneurship. It triggered me to continue searching for more information about using social network in entrepreneurship