Attitudes of Entrepreneurs Towards Social Media as a Marketing Tool

Rapid development of technologies has led to emergence of new opportunities for businesses such as social media. Online social networks and media are well recognized and increasingly used by businesses as valuable source of information regarding the design, acceptance and use of their products and services, and also as important marketing tool to reach diverse groups of customers that had not been covered earlier by their marketing campaigns. The purpose of this paper was to research the low presence of Croatian entrepreneurs on social media and their platforms and the use of these media as marketing tools to increase business efficiency. The main goal of the research was to find out whether social media marketing is important for businesses, to explore the advantages and disadvantages of marketing campaigns conducted through social media and to identify the best social media platforms for those purposes. The research questions have been formulated in accordance with the objectives of the research: (a) to what extent is Social Media Marketing important for business?; (b) to what extent do companies use social media in business?; (c) do businesses have social media strategies developed?; and (d) do the costs of using social media justify their use for marketing purposes? The conducted research has shown the attitude of the Croatian entrepreneurs toward usage of modern technologies to boost their business performance, and has indicated the possible reasons for low adoption of social media as marketing tool