Social Media Marketing Strategies Used by Small Retail Businesses

Recommendations for Action 
In this qualitative multiple case study, I explored the SMM strategies small 
business retailers used to engage customers. Many organizations included social media 
in their marketing strategies (Ananda et al., 2016) because direct two-way 
communication between business and customer was facilitated by social media (Lillqvist 
& Louhiala-Salminen, 2014). Brands increased their presence on social media, which 
enabled consumers to drive the conversation and communicate with brands in real-time 
(De Vries & Carlson, 2014). Brand marketing can be expensive; however, social media 
were a low-cost solution for small businesses with limited marketing budgets (Herman, 
2015). SMM could have a positive effect on revenues and profits (Kumar et al., 2016); 
therefore, business leaders must effectively use social media to maximize potential 
benefits and engage customers (Constantinides, 2014).
Company leaders used popular social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, 
Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Skype, and Instagram to engage consumers (Hibbler-Britt 
& Sussan, 2015). Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are the most popular social media 
platforms (Patil & Puri, 2015); however, Facebook alone has billions of users (Kane, 
2015). Considering over 1 billion people have Facebook accounts, Chatzithomas et al. 
(2014) confirmed that business leaders should develop and employ SMM strategies to 
engage consumers.

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Study participants cited SMM strategies and platforms, social media content, and 
customer engagement and retention as critical elements in their marketing and 
engagement strategies. Current and future small business retailers could use the 
emergent themes in this study to better understand the impact SMM could have on their 
own customer engagement strategies. Others who might benefit from the results and 
recommendations of this study include small business owners across various industries, 
leaders in the community planning and development field, and future marketing research 
students.