Social Media Marketing Strategies Used by Small Retail Businesses

Operational Definitions 
Branding:
Branding is a marketing strategy designed to promote a product to 
attract and retain consumers (Rosendale, 2015).

Customer engagement:
Customer engagement is a strategy that encourages the 
consumer to interact and share experiences with a company or brand (Brodie, Hollebeek, 
Juric, & Ilic, 2011). 
Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM):
Electronic word-of-mouth is person-to-
person communication spread over social media or the Internet (Leung, Bai, & Stahura, 
2015). 
Innovation: 
An innovation is the first endeavor to put an idea or invention into 
practice (Fagerberg, 2006).

Social media:
Social media are online platforms that host opportunities for web 
users to interact by creating, exchanging, and sharing information. Social media can 
encourage participation as well as interactions between potential clients and companies 
(Ho, 2014).
 
Social media marketing (SMM):
Social media marketing is the practice of using 
Internet-based social media platforms to promote goods, services, information, and ideas 
(Dahnil, Marzuki, Langgat, & Fabeil, 2014). 

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Social networking sites:
Social networking sites are web-based services such as 
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Skype, and Instagram that allow 
individuals to build an online public profile, create a list of other users they wish to stay 
in contact with, and post information for their friends and others to see (Hibbler-Britt & 
Sussan, 2015). 
Traditional marketing:
Traditional marketing comprises of marketing tools such 
as television, print, and radio advertisements (Hassan, et al.
, 2015). 
 
User-generated content:
User-generated content is massive quantities of 
information produced by and about people, things, and their interactions (Lu & 
Stepchenkova, 2015). 
Word-of-mouth:
Word-of-mouth content is 
an unpaid form of promotion in which 
satisfied customers tell other people how much they like a business, product, or service 
(
Kawakami, Kishiya, & Parry, 2013).