Use of Social Network Sites Depending on the Country of Origin of the Social Network Site User

Abstract

Recent technological developments have determined that Social network sites (SNSs) are also marketplaces to exchange information between members e.g. to inform individuals about new products or to cooperate with each other. Such aspects of SNSs use are under the academic researchers’ interest worldwide. The strategy to create a market in SNSs for different countries can be successful if companies have a deep understanding of SNSs. That needs the investigation if mechanism in SNSs and the use of SNSs is similar world-wide. The aim of the research is to investigate how people use SNSs and to analyze reasons to use SNSs, as well as analyze differences of SNSs use depending upon the respondent’s country of origin. The tasks are to investigate similarities or differences in use of SNS in different countries and compare results of SNS use in Germany (GER), Latvia (LV), United Kingdom (UK) and Hungary (HU). The research methods applied are as follows: 1) theoretical studies in scientific publications and 2) analysis of survey level data on SNS use in Germany, United Kingdom, Latvia and Hungary. The data is analyzed with main indicators of descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation coefficient and partial least square calculations with WarpPLS to investigate difference between the countries. The intensity of use of SNSs is a kind of investment in SNSs e.g. time to share information. That can be defined as social capital. The main result of the current research is that the local conditions influence the global tool SNSs.