Social Networking Using Social Media for Small Enterprises: Strategies, Challenges and Measure of Success

Abstract

Despite its huge share of business establishment, SMEs contribution to the overall GDP is only 37.1%. Digital technology utilisation i.e., social media, fosters collaboration between SMEs-customers-product influencers in realizing the aim. SME Digitalisation policy established and urge SMEs to increase the social media marketing to 39%. But there is limited knowledge and absence of SME social media collaboration framework. The philosophy behind the social media marketing is social networking. With the advance of big data analytics, social network analysis enables the identification of product influencers. But research on social media utilisation to identify influencers and networking in social media received limited attention, compounded by the absence of metrics to measure success of the initiative. Therefore, this research aims to answer the following questions: (1) How does social media collaboration implement into SME business functional areas i.e., marketing? (2) What are the problems and challenges faced in social media collaboration implementation into business functional areas i.e., marketing? and (3) What are the measures of success for SME social media collaboration in functional areas of business i.e., marketing? The research methodology used will be reviewing existing literatures related to this topic. This research will identify building blocks of SME social media collaboration in relationship-marketing approach. The research output helps in further improving the execution of SMEs Digitalisation Policy and establishing the research methodology of social media data analytics in social science.