Abstract
In light of the growing role of social media marketing in the success of businesses and its low adoption rate among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), this study aims to identify determinants of SMEs’ social media marketing adoption by considering the competitive industry as a moderator. Data were collected from 214 SMEs in Malaysia. Unlike extant literature, this study proposed a dual-stage analysis involving partial least squares (PLS) technique and artificial intelligence named deep artificial neural network (ANN). The application of deep ANN architecture is used to predict 91% of accuracy for the proposed model. The results showed that perceived relative advantage, perceived cost, top management support, perceived competitor pressure, and perceived vendor pressure have a significant impact on social media marketing adoption. Furthermore, the competitive industry moderates the effects of competitive pressure and customer pressure on social media marketing adoption. The results of the study extend the literature on social media marketing by illustrating the influence of technological, organizational, and environmental (TOE) factors on social media marketing adoption among SMEs concerning the extent of industry competition. The results of the study enable policymakers and managers of SMEs to understand the factors that influence social media marketing adoption in both competitive and non-competitive industries and invest effectively in digital marketing.
Highlights
The results showed that perceived relative advantage, perceived cost, top management support, perceived competitor pressure, and perceived vendor pressure have a significant impact on social media marketing adoption
According to the results, perceived relative advantage, perceived cost, top management support, perceived competitor pressure, and perceived vendor pressure have a significant effect on social media marketing adoption
Out of the three technological factors used as the drivers of social media marketing adoption intention, the results indicate that intention to adopt social media marketing is positively impacted by perceived relative advantage, while it is negatively affected by perceived cost
Summary
SAGE Open media, have revolutionized the way marketing activities take place (Eid et al, 2019; Khayer et al, 2020). Social media has diversified its role and has proven to be a distinct and pivotal marketing tool in shaping the success of any product/services/business (Eid et al, 2019; Wamba et al, 2019). Social media marketing is on the rise, and its importance is evident as the investment in social advertising across the globe is predicted to rise to US 153, 563 million by 2021 (Statista, 2021). In the United States alone, more than 14.8 billion U.S dollars was spent on social media marketing in 2016, thereby making the United States, beyond a doubt, the largest social media advertising market in the world (Statista, 2021)
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