Differences in the Exchange of Contents of Different Countries in Social Network Sites

Introduction

It is important to know for organizations to decide how to use private SNSs to be successful. The global tool SNSs creates content. This content can be exchanged, improved and shared with other members (Teh, Huah, & Si, 2014). The collaboration between different individuals with the support of social media is a great opportunity to produce valuable input. This input can be used to develop new things or to make decisions for example. This means the SNSs is a market place of information, a tool to collaborate and to produce valuable results (Kock, 2005). The importance of information is increasing. Society is more and more knowledge based and the importance of information is increasing and can be used to create a competitive advantage for organizations and individuals. The SNSs provide the opportunity to exchange quickly and easily information with low transaction costs. This makes SNSs very interesting for organizations to share their information to a large audience (Kucukemiroglu & Kara, 2015; Li & Bernoff, 2011). In addition, it is possible to collect a group of SNSs member. This means only valuable information is forwarded to interested recipients. The individuals meet each other in SNSs because they have a benefit (Blau, 2011). That is very beneficial for companies if they would advertise a new product. Communication is a major part of international marketing strategy. International marketing communication is cross cultural – communication between a person in one culture and a person or persons in another culture (Albaum et al 2005). Many studies discuss forces that drive adaptation or standardisation of international marketing strategies. The standardised advertising message may not always be suitable for all the segments of the market, as there are national differences, consumers’ perception and knowledge about the product can differ, and equally the perception of the advantages of the product can differ. The global tool SNSs provide the transfer of information to different countries. There do not exist borders in SNSs between countries in Europe (Levickaite, 2010). This leads to the assumption that companies can forward their information to many different countries quickly and easily. They have one tool for all countries and do not need to customize anything. This is an assumption which is explored in this paper. The difference between the acceptances of the content could be an interesting information for organizations to use SNSs successfully.

Information is a valuable property in a knowledge-based society. The power of information is important for companies and societies. The access to information can represent a competitive advantage for individuals. SNSs are a place to share information. The social network is a tool to share information without borders worldwide (Wasko, 2005; Van Alstyne & Bulkley, 2004). This paper evaluates the kind of content in SNSs. It evaluates what kind of content is exchanged in Germany, United Kingdom, Latvia and Hungary. The kind of transfer of information is a part of the value. The information which is not shared can be valuable because the information is an advantage for the receiving individuals. They should be interested in the content that the information can influence on them e.g. to buy something. The value of the information depends on the effectiveness and efficiency of the transfer.