Social Media Marketing Strategies Used by Small Retail Businesses

Small Business Contributions to the U.S. Economy 
Small businesses are vital to the U.S. economy; have a significant impact in 
creating new jobs, economic growth, and innovation; and are major contributors to 
socioeconomic development throughout the world (Karadag, 2015). In March 2014, a 
representative of the SBA reported small businesses in the United States made up 99.7% 
of employer firms, 63% of net new private-sector jobs, 48.5% of private-sector employ-
ment, 42% of private-sector payroll, 46% of private-sector output, 37% of high-tech 
employment, 98% of firms exporting goods, and 33% of exporting value (SBA, 2015).
Small businesses account for approximately 39% of the U.S. gross national product 

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(GNP) and employ about 40 million people in the United States, yet 50% fail within the 
first five years of operation (Boling et al., 2014; SBA, 2016a; Wamba & Carter, 2014).
Social Media 
Social media are Internet-based technologies designed for multiple people to 
interact simultaneously and share information (Bingham & Conner, 2015). Hibbler-Britt 
and Sussan (2015) stated that social media played a key role in the survival of small 
businesses. Business use of social media platforms had significant impacts in managerial 
and marketing arenas (Georgescu & Popescul, 2015). Leonardi (2014) found that 
workplace communication via social networks decreased work duplication and enhanced 
the development of innovative ideas for products and services. Business leaders used 
social media to engage customers, remain competitive, and gain visibility in their 
respective markets (Taneja & Toombs, 2014). Company leaders used popular social 
networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Skype, and 
Instagram to engage consumers, which enabled small businesses to compete with larger 
businesses (Hibbler-Britt & Sussan, 2015).
Company leaders used social media platforms to engage directly with existing and 
potential customers, which fostered building relationships (Goi, 2014). Business leaders 
used social media to engage consumers directly (Sajid, 2016). Consumers and business 
leaders used social media to share and receive information about each other, brands, 
products, and services via web-based and mobile technologies (Dahnil et al., 2014).
Business leaders used data received from their consumers to predict or influence 
consumer-buying behavior, generate sales, increase brand popularity, and attract new 

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consumers (Dahnil et al., 2014). Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are the most popular 
social media platforms (Patil & Puri, 2015). Customers are spending more time on social 
media interacting with people who have similar interests (Kumar et al., 2016). Facebook 
has over 1 billion users, while Twitter and LinkedIn users are in the hundreds of millions 
(Kane, 2015). Pinterest and Snapchat are new popular social media platforms which 
seemed to appear overnight and are growing rapidly (Kane, 2015). Consumers used 
social media to share positive or negative service experiences conspicuously or 
anonymously on a business page (Valos, Habibi, Casidy, Driesener, & Maplestone, 
2016). Schulze, Scholer, and Skiera (2014) argued that customers who use social media 
regularly will have more influence on other customers in social media communities who 
possess the same views about a product or service.