6. Conclusions
In the last decades the new technological developments in the field of information and communication technologies
have changed the way companies, managers and the individuals communicate. We have seen great leaps in the
methods of communication between individuals as well as new methods of interaction have arisen. So, new social
networks have been developed in the online environment. In the last decade a new mean of communication has come
to life and has greatly changed the life of many individuals and of many organizations: the online social network. We
have presented in this paper the concept of online social network, the evolution of this tool and its advantages and
disadvantages for using it in the business and real world.
We have developed a quantitative marketing research in order to understand the main reasons for using OSN, the
main online sites known by high school students and the main activities undertaken by them when accessing such an
account. The research was developed in high schools from Sibiu, Salaj and Satu Mare Counties. We can summarize
the results as follows:
95% of the respondents have an online social networking site account;
The most recognized online social networking sites are Facebook and Google+;
The preferred connection method to an OSN account is the personal computer and the laptop;
The main assessment criteria for accepting a connection is: the person is known by the account owner, followed
by the number of common friends.
The main activities that the students do when connected to their OSN account are: communicate with friends and
post photos.
The average number of connections that an user has is more than 500;
A message from a friend / acquaintance influences the user in a strong and average manner.
The advertising campaigns have influenced the high school students and the same users state that they use the
OSN to inform themselves about products / services or events and some of them buy products or services.
As we can see the respondents are various and offer us an interesting view in the minds of high school students that
own an online social networking site account. This tool can be used by managers and marketing specialists alike to
better develop their marketing or communication strategy. We hope that this research can be a step forward in
understanding how to improve the viability of the OSN in the business world. Of course our research is only a
transversal one and further studies in this field in a longitudinal manner can be developed in order to understand the
evolution of the online social networking phenomenon over time and use its results in business strategies.