Social Media Marketing Strategies Used by Small Retail Businesses

Participants 
The participants of this study were small business leaders in the retail industry 
whose businesses grossed less than $7.5 million in annual receipts. The business leaders 
were business owners located in SATX who had at least five years of business experience 
and successfully used SMM strategies to engage customers. Adhering to strict criteria for 
selecting the correct participants will allow me to obtain critical data in less time and 

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interviewing an expert will help to capture detailed participant experiences (Roulston & 
Shelton, 2015). Before soliciting participants, I requested approval from Walden’s 
Institutional Review Board (IRB) and adhered to proper ethical procedures to avoid any 
violation of human rights.
The Small Business Development Center (SBDC) in SATX was a resource at my 
disposal to solicit potential participants for my study. The SBDC assists small business 
entrepreneurs to be competitive in the global marketplace by providing free business 
consulting and a myriad of low-cost training services (SBA, 2016b). The SBDC’s public 
database contains physical addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and other 
pertinent information for small business retailers required to locate suitable participants 
for this study. Purposive sampling is a focused data collection technique and allowed me 
to reach data saturation quicker than some other methods (Yin, 2018). Snowball 
sampling was a strategy that allowed participants to recommend or refer me to someone 
who might be able to provide further insight into my research (Emerson, 2015). Using 
the purposeful snowball sampling technique also increased the chances that I was able to 
obtain the number of desired participants (Emerson, 2015). The snowball sampling 
method relies on established networks and adds credibility to research (Valerio et al., 
2016). 
Researchers should first establish a relationship and build trust with their 
participants (Browne & McBride, 2015). Recruiting participants occurred with discretion 
and followed strict ethical guidelines (Robinson, 2014). Participant recruiting can occur 
face-to-face, by advertising, or via the Internet. In order to establish a relationship and 

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build trust with the participants, I contacted the chosen business leaders via email and 
provided a short introduction and fully disclosed the intent of the study and my 
expectations of their voluntary participation. Voluntary participation leads to more 
robust data collection and accurate results (Lestari, Kotani, & Kakinaka, 2015).
Participants were informed that participation was voluntary and anonymous, the purpose 
of my study, and that there was no compensation before making an informed decision.
The business leaders who chose to participate in this study received a hand-delivered 
consent form, a signed copy of the consent form prior to the start of the interview, and 
had a choice of interview locations to ensure anonymity, confidentiality, and maximum 
comfort.