Identifying Social Media's Capability for Recognizing Entrepreneurial Opportunity: An Exploratory Study

Social media is believed to play an essential role in entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. However, little is known about the exact nature of the relationship between the capability of social media and entrepreneurial opportunity recognition. Addressing this gap in literature, we interviewed eleven Nigerian entrepreneurs to investigate how opportunity can be recognised via their engagement with social media platforms. It was found that, via Social Media, entrepreneurs recognise opportunities regarding introducing new products, entering new markets, better customer relations and participating in entrepreneurial events. We also identified that opportunity recognition is driven by five capabilities of social media: networking, searching, observation, experimenting, and social media data analytics. Implications of our findings and limitations are discussed.