5. Discussion
Social media are profoundly contributing to a radical transformation of marketing practice, customer behavior and e-business. In fact, the social media era increases the available information about products, services and commercial outlets accessible to consumers; social media also affects the nature and dissemination of marketing information (Shin, Pang, & Kim, 2015).
Likewise, social media applications have been gradually transformed from completely customer-specific to customer-centric tools that allow organizations to take part in the interaction between network members (Trainor et al., 2014). Therefore, social media enable a substantial increase in customer power (Riegner, 2007), so engaging them within a firm’s marketing strategy seems a logical and desirable business choice. There are indications that the impact of the social web is indeed very significant in several business areas and, particularly, in marketing communication and product innovation (Kim & Bae, 2008).
In particular, for export-oriented companies, social media developments can have a substantial impact in their online strategies and foreign markets, as these applications provide better communication with foreign customers, thus reducing or even eliminating the physical distance. In fact, some authors point out their potential influence on international business and export marketing strategies (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, & Shapiro, 2012; Maltby, 2012; Okazaki & Taylor, 2013) as these applications may break down barriers of time and distance between the supply and demand sides (Constantinides et al., 2008).
Subsequently, with the emergence of social media, exporting companies nowadays have a greater ability than ever to take advantage of international market-growth opportunities (Mathews et al., 2012). Thus, the adoption and exploitation of social media tools have specific and unique implications for international marketers (Berthon et al., 2012; Okazaki & Taylor, 2013).
