Social Media Marketing Strategies Used by Small Retail Businesses

Background of the Problem 
 
Small businesses play a vital role in the
 
global economy. The classification of a 
small business in the retail trade industry is a business with a gross of less than $7.5 
million in average annual receipts
that employs 1 to 500 people (SBA, 2016a). Small 

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business owners faced marketing challenges to gain a competitive market position 
(Hutchinson, Donnell, Gilmore, & Reid, 2015). One of the most impactful challenges for 
business leaders is developing an effective SMM strategy to engage customers (Oyza & 
Agwu, 2016). Jones et al. (2015) posited that an effective marketing strategy is 
invaluable to business success. Effective marketing strategies have a positive impact on a 
business’s financial performance and survival rate (Fillis, 2015).
Small businesses must employ certain customer engagement practices to compete 
against larger firms (Taneja & Toombs, 2014). Social media were the most cost-effective 
medium for marketing and suitable for small businesses that may not have a large 
marketing budget (Hassan et al., 
2015). Some small business leaders lack effective 
SMM strategies required to successfully engage consumers. Herman (2015) posited that 
small business leaders have been unsuccessful in implementing SMM strategies that 
promote the longevity of their businesses. The high failure rate of small business in the 
United States was a major concern (Anderson & Ullah, 2014; Karadag, 2015). While 
many factors contribute to business failure, customer engagement is a key component for 
business success (Hibbler-Britt & Sussan, 2015) as well as setting goals and developing 
strategies (Chatterjee & Das, 2015).
Problem Statement 
There are some organizations struggling to find ways to effectively connect with 
customers (Oyza & Agwu, 2016). Oyza and Agwu (2016) discovered that 62% of 
marketers identified developing an effective social media marketing strategy as one of the 
most impactful challenges for business leaders. The general business problem is that 

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some business leaders do not fully understand how to leverage social media marketing to 
engage customers. The specific business problem is that some business leaders struggle 
to effectively implement social media marketing strategies to engage customers.