AbstractPurpose - The primary aim of this article is to identify theoretical foundations that can be used in research on social media in the context of international advertising research. An additional objective is to identify future research directions for theory building in this research area. Design/methodology/approach - The article draws on the extant literature to identify three key theoretical foundations that can be used in research on advertising in media from an advertising perspective: networking capability; image transferability; and personal extensibility. For each of these perspectives, the current state of knowledge, theoretical challenges, and future research directions are summarized. Findings - The three key theoretical perspectives (networking capability, image transferability, and personal extensibility) provide strong potential for better understanding the advantages and disadvantages of social media use for advertisers. They are also useful for identifying important research gaps that need to be filled in the future. Research limitations/implications - Research on social media advertising in an international context is still in its infancy, and needs further attention. As few cross-cultural studies have been conducted, the theories and their application will likely evolve in the future. Originality/value - A review and conceptual framework pertaining to theoretical perspective used in social media research in an international advertising context has been practically non-existent. Thus, this article is designed to serve as a solid starting point for future research endeavors. Introduction The use of social media among Fortune 500 companies surged in 2012. According to a study conducted by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, as many as 73 percent of these companies now have an official corporate account in Twitter, while 66 percent have a corporate Facebook page. In addition, as of 2011, 28 percent of the companies had blogs at the corporate level, representing the largest increase since 2008 (2 Barnes et al. , 2012). This increase is indicative of a long-term trend toward social media use among corporations (as well as individual brands) becoming the norm. Social media have been defined as a series of technological innovations in terms of both hardware and software that facilitate inexpensive content creation, interaction, and interoperability by online users (5 Berthon et al. , 2012). Social media differ from traditional computer-mediated communications in three primary ways: a shift in the locus of activity from the desktop to the web (meaning greater accessibility); a shift in locus of value production from the firm to the consumer (deriving from increased interaction/interactivity); and a shift in the locus of power away from the firm to the consumer (5 Berthon et al. , 2012). A typical classification of social media includes collaborative projects (e.g. Wikipedia), blogs, user-generated content communities (e.g. Flickr; YouTube; Youku/Toduo), social networking sites (e.g. Facebook; Cyworld), virtual game worlds (e.g. EverQuest), and virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life) (23 Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Furthermore, social media goes to mobile, breaking ground in traditional time-location restrictions. This paper addresses the use of social media in international advertising and how research can be designed to better understand how social media can be done. Our objectives are threefold. First, we draw on the extant literature to identify major theoretical foundations that can be used to better understand the importance of social media in the context of international advertising research. Second, we provide an overview of prior research in social media advertising from a cross-cultural (or multinational corporations) perspective. While this literature review is not designed to be comprehensive, it focusses on several key relevant studies, and, thus, serves as an important basis for our discussion. Third, we provide suggestions for future research directions that can advance knowledge on this topic. This paper proposes a conceptual framework consisting of three highly relevant theoretical foundations that are commonly applicable for any type of social media-networking capability, image transferability, and personal extensibility. The rationale behind this framework is that social media can be an effective vehicle for international advertisers based on executing and making good use of the three capabilities in the international marketplace. It must be noted at the outset that we do not intend to suggest that the three theoretical foundations we identify are the only theory bases that should be used for advertising in social media; to the contrary, we offer several additional perspectives that are relevant in our discussion of future research directions. Rather, we propose that these three dimensions are the foundation from which social media can be used to derive