Social media resources and entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation

Purpose Social media marketing is a great tool for entrepreneurs because of its low cost, fast response and rich interactions. This study aims to examine how entrepreneurs use social media as a tool of marketing and how social media resources influence entrepreneurial opportunity evaluation. Design/methodology/approach The authors designed a mixed methods study with an open-ended question survey and a conjoint experiment. The authors sent out an online survey through M-Turk and collected 355 valid responses from entrepreneurs. Findings The results show that entrepreneurs consider social media as important to their businesses and that entrepreneurs consider their social media resources when they evaluate entrepreneurial opportunities. Originality/value This study enriches the understanding of entrepreneurial social media marketing by revealing the granular and nuanced descriptions and interpretations of social media marketing from entrepreneurs’ perspectives. This study also contributes to the entrepreneurial marketing literature by showing how different social media resources influence entrepreneurs’ evaluations and pursuit of entrepreneurial opportunities.