Improving the social performance of women-led microenterprises: The role of social media marketing actions

Abstract

Taking the digital marketing activities carried out by female-led microenterprises as its jumping-off point, this paper aims to accomplish two main goals: firstly, to analyze the effects of social media marketing (SMM) actions on social performance (SP) and, secondly, to determine whether the qualities of female microentrepreneurs have an impact on the SMM-SP relationship. Entrepreneurship affords many female a solid work-life balance. With scarce financial resources, they often turn to creative social media strategies to secure financial sustainability beyond the short term, as well as to enhance their medium- and long-term social performance. Our regression and moderation analysis of a sample of 127 microenterprises, the data for which was collected by online surveys administered to female microentrepreneurs, reveals SMM actions' direct effect on social performance. Our findings also show that female microentrepreneurs' human capital directly influences SP and moderates the effects of marketing strategies on SP. The paper ends by presenting relevant conclusions for both academics and marketing practitioners.