Principios básicos de la Ley de Prensa de

The networking capability of social media platforms plays a vital role for entrepreneurs in recognizing opportunities. The ability to network and accumulate social capital by interacting with different people allows prospective customers to know more about the entrepreneur’s business. This leads to accessing new markets or introducing new products, as seen with NGR5 and NGR6. Networking is a principal factor in opportunity recognition and resource mobilization for entrepreneurs in the offline entrepreneurship literature. Based on the interview analysis, networking on social media was identified to be crucial for opportunity recognition due to its ability to support digital relations and network transparency. It was also seen that digital relations (social interactivity, scalability, and interoperability) and association were crucial to networking on social media. Transversability, which is discussed in the later section, was not done by most of the respondents, and visibility according to them, was not vital for their opportunity recognition. Due to this, social interactivity, scalability, interoperability, and association were considered as dimensions of networking in the quantitative phase.

5.6.1.1 Digital relations

Digital relations involve establishing relationships with other people on social media platforms. The respondents agreed that the social media digital relations feature was crucial for them to be able to recognize opportunities, and this was explored through the notions of social interactivity, scalability, and interoperability.

Social interactivity: Social interactivity entails how entrepreneurs establish relationships with others on social media. It is the most prominent way that networking on social media supports opportunity recognition and resource mobilization. On social media, entrepreneurs can communicate and interact with one another without any kind of constraint. This gave room for the respondents to forge relationships with more established people, which they would not have been able to do without social media; where they could interact and pitch their businesses. The interactivity of social media allowed respondents like NGR6 to recognize opportunities by relating to people on social media groups. In addition, social media capability for commenting and tagging helped in opportunity recognition. In the case

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of NGR11, it afforded him the opportunity to be aware of events such as competitions and also connect with one of the best photographers in Nigeria. The interactivity of social media also allowed NGR3 and NGR4 to fine-tune their ideas and develop new products. For the Australian respondents, social media interactivity is only useful as a first point of contact (AUS1) and just allows you to get to meet people but not actively identify opportunities (AUS2).

Scalability: The ability to send and receive mass information on social media platforms afforded the respondents the opportunity to enhance their customer relations. This is achieved by disseminating information (text, short video or picture) on their social media handles to pass relevant information across. NGR8 explained that social media allows her to showcase her products to all her clients without the need to send them individual messages. This makes them aware of her new products in brief time spans, which leads to better sales and customer relations. For NGR6, scalability of social media allows for business partnerships to be established, after which social interactivity follows, which helps in efficient resource mobilization as evidenced in the interview with him.

Interoperability: Interoperability of social media allows for better customer relations and ease of social media operations by allowing the entrepreneurs to post similar or different contents across several social media platforms simultaneously. This is aided by the syncing of various social media platforms together; such as Facebook and Instagram, or the use of software that allows for scheduling and posting contents across the platforms. For example, AUS1 uses personalized systems to manage the content she shares on her social media platforms, and NGR5 uses ISTTP. For the majority of the Nigerian entrepreneurs, whatever goes to their Instagram account reflects on their Facebook personal account because they are connected. This is summarized by most respondents thus: “... whatever goes to my Instagram goes to my Facebook …” (NGR11).

5.6.1.2 Network transparency

The ability of the entrepreneur to be able to view their network and be equally aware of other people’s networks is crucial for opportunity recognition.

Association: Social media allows for entrepreneurs to know about the existence of connections in their network. This allows them to tap into such networks and make optimal use of the network connections at their disposal. As explained by the respondents, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram suggest network connections based

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on their interests, which allows the entrepreneur to be aware of more possible connections that they can establish, form relationships with and get ideas from. NGR3 noted that association on social media allows you to have access to novel information regarding new markets, new products and events. NGR1 took the discussion a bit further when he highlighted the ability to connect on social media based on “interest point”; this allows for

getting information, and in his own case, meeting his co-founder.

Transversability: Social media, through its ability to allow entrepreneurs to navigate through their own and other people’s networks, allows them “to research into networks easier” (AUS1). The transversability capability of social media was seen as not vital by the majority of the respondents in recognizing opportunities on social media platforms. However, NGR1 and NGR6 noted the “ripple effect”, which occurs due to the ability to go through their own

and other people’s networks to generate a string of connections that can be leveraged for their business use. For NGR6, he was able to go through networks on Facebook groups and navigate through the members, connect with them, and build personal relationships.

Visibility: Network visibility affordance did not really play a crucial role in opportunity recognition as gathered from the interviews. The entrepreneurs argued that the primary reason they are on social media platforms is because of the visibility it offers, which can open up opportunities for new markets and customers. NGR5, for example, said that the ability of their network to be visible and to follow celebrities pushes the celebrities’ fans to follow them and go for their service.