Social Media Marketing Strategies Used by Small Retail Businesses

Presentation of the Findings 
The findings resulted from the data analysis concerning the primary research 
question for this study which was: What social media marketing strategies do small 
business retailers use to engage customers? I contacted five small retail business owners 
and explained the details of my study. I presented the business owners with the consent 
form, which they all signed and agreed to be audio recorded. Participants were informed 
that no personal information would be included in the final study, therefore all 
participants are only identified as P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5. I conducted semistructured, 
face-to-face interviews with five male and female participants who had owned their 

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businesses for more than five years, ranged in age from 37 to 48, and used successful 
SMM strategies to engage customers.
Table 1. 
Participants’ Responses to Themes
P1 
P2 
P3 
P4 
P5 
Theme 1 
17 
13 
20 
16 
22 
Theme 2 
12 
9 
11 
13 
16 
Theme 3 
8 
11 
7 
9 
13 
Note
. Number of participant responses related to themes 
 
The participants provided substantial responses to 10 open-ended interview 
questions, which varied in depth and scope and provided me with insights into how small 
business retailers use SMM strategies to engage customers. Along with conducting 
semistructured interviews, the data collection process also involved reviewing company 
SMM strategies and social media pages across multiple social media platforms. Each 
participant attested to posting content across multiple social media platforms several 
times per week as part of their business strategy to engage customers. 
Audio-recording each interview allowed me to transcribe the interviews with 
ease. I summarized each interview to conduct member checking. Member checking 
required that all participants confirm the interview transcript to enhance validation and 
approve my interpretations of their responses to the interview questions (Marshall & 
Rossman, 2016). After all participants agreed that I accurately interpreted their 
responses, I began data analysis. I used NVivo to help code and identify recurring 
themes. Weber, Geneste, and Connell (2015) stated that coding data using NVivo could 

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help uncover recurring themes. The themes I extracted from the analysis of the data 
aligned with this study’s conceptual framework and review of the existing literature.