Małgorzata Bartosik-Purgat

The purpose of this paper is to identify the role that contemporary international fair conforms to the exhibitors and how Polish exporters perceive and utilize its informative role. International fairs are among the most complex and effective ways of prospecting foreign markets. Among the many advantages of participating in a specialized international fair, maintaining, updating, and intensifying relations with existing customers and distributors, and finding new customers are some of the key features. Furthermore, the participation itself is a perfect pretext for carrying out a market research, getting information about the competition, and testing the acceptance of a new or innovative product among visitors. The participation in an international fair can prove highly beneficial for the company. Nevertheless, it is usually a costly activity, and for this reason the selection from the multitude of fairs of the most relevant for the participating company is an action to be done wisely and bearing in mind several selection criteria. The results of a research conducted in Poland offers valuable insights into how Polish exporters perceive and utilize nonselling activities during the international fair including carrying out general market research and meeting existing and new customers and distributors.

The aim of the article is to identify the areas of using Facebook – one of the most popular social  networking websites. The analysis has been based on empirical data gathered among individualn users in several foreign markets (China, Poland, Spain, Germany, Russia, the United States, Turkey). Empirical quantitative research has been carried out in which paper and electronic inquiry  forms (CAWI) have been filled out by the respondents. Four areas of using Facebook by individualn users have been distinguished: communication, education, consumer behaviour, and work. The obtained indicators of Spearman rank correlation between the frequency of using Facebook and the distinguished areas are very diversified, both among the studied groups and the areas of use. The results show the peculiarities of particular groups in terms of using Facebook.