Social Media Marketing Strategies Used by Small Retail Businesses

Research Question 
What SMM strategies do small business retailers use to engage customers? 
Interview Questions 
1.
What social media platforms do you currently use to support your retail 
operations? 
2.
What SMM strategies do you use to engage customers? 
3.
What are your most effective SMM strategies to engage customers? 
4.
How has social media improved customer engagement?
5.
What SMM strategies are important to retail operations? 
6.
What SMM strategies have been beneficial to your business? 
7.
What SMM strategies are unique to retail operations? 
8.
What positive effects on your business have using SMM strategies had on 
engaging customers?
9.
How have you adjusted your SMM strategies based on customer feedback? 
10.
What additional information would you like to share concerning your SMM 
strategies? 
Conceptual Framework 
Rogers’s diffusion of innovations (DOI) theory was the conceptual framework of 
this study I used to explore how small business retailers developed and incorporated 
SMM strategies to engage customers. Rogers popularized the DOI theory in 1962.
Rogers’ DOI theory, established as a communications theory, is the foundation for 
behavior change models within the social science discipline (Valente & Rogers, 1995).
Rogers sought to explain how, why, and the rate at which ideas and technology spread 

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through cultures. The use of technology increased customer reach and business growth 
(Nawafleh, 2015). The four categories of the DOI theory are innovation, communication 
channels, time, and social system (Rogers, 2003). Adopting an innovation was key to 
achieving a competitive advantage over competitors and remaining profitable 
(Achadinha, Jama, & Nel, 2014). Communication channels such as social media, apps, 
and websites are innovations used for marketing (Andrews, Goehring, Hui, Pancras, & 
Thornswood, 2016). Grewal, Roggeveen, and Nordfält (2017) used the DOI theory to 
explore the length of time it takes for individuals to adopt a technology.
Social circles 
could affect user adoption, resulting in organizations leveraging social systems to 
influence adoption rates (Risselada, 
Verhoef, & Bijmolt
, 2014).
Rogers’ DOI adoption factors: (a) relative advantage, (b) compatibility, (c) 
complexibility, (d) trialability, and (e) observability influenced adopters of social media 
(Zolkepli & Kamarulzaman, 2015). Yahaya, Hamid, Fauzi, Idris, and Haji-Othman 
(2016) used the DOI to explore the influence of relative advantage, compatibility, and 
complexity had on mobile banking services and was able to use the results to predict 
users’ likelihood of using mobile banking services. Dutta (2016) used trialability to 
explore the differences in how men and women accepted technology. Razaghpanah et al. 
(2015) suggested that marketers observe and analyze mobile traffic and network data, 
which could be used to create effective SMM and customer engagement strategies. I 
applied the DOI theory as the conceptual framework of this study to explore how small 
business retailers developed and incorporated SMM strategies to engage customers, 
which afforded multiple areas of exploration. Using the DOI theory along with 

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semistructured interviews, observations, and a thorough review of existing literature 
facilitated the understanding of how small businesses implemented SMM strategies to 
engage customers.