PROJEKT

TEMA: SME AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Lënda: Sipërmarrje dhe Menaxhim i Biznesit të Vogël

Grupi:
Sindi Qoshja
Marisa Berisha
Ledina Sali
Ermioni Lena
Fiqirete Isiberi
By the beginning of 21th century, the use of internet and social media has become a part of
business strategy. In addition to this, companies started using unique qualities of web and
have shifted their market strategy to e-commerce. More companies, especially SMEs started
taking the advantage of social media; it has become a popular marketing tool under the title
of Social Network Marketing (SNM)
➢ SNM
Most prevalent SNM practices involve creating and operating a company’s fan page,
managing promotions, maintaining public relations and conducting market research. Other
activities include providing customer support, encouraging customer reviews and discussions.
In addition to this, smaller companies are more suited to utilize SNM due to their greater
flexibility and higher need to contain marketing communications costs. Larger SMEs
outscore smaller SMEs in terms of likelihood to update their websites on an ongoing basis,
providing online support via FAQs or a customer portal and social interaction .According to
the SMEs organizational objectives and capabilities some of them only use internet forum-
blogs in order to gather industry specific information and promoting their events. Some
others are highly active on micro blogging tools (such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+) for
online advertising and creating an effective online communication network.
➢ E-WOM Marketing:
Communication channels and context of messages are crucial elements in developing trust, as
they help to clarify expectations in relationships between companies and their customers.
E-Word of mouth marketing gives an opportunity for SMEs. The more people talk and write
online about the brand in a positive way, the more effective marketing strategies work.
There are various online applications (online feedback mechanisms, viral marketing, social
networking, blogging) that are a form of e-WOM, however, considering the speed of the
internet, many researchers agree that the effects of e-WOM are more impactful, and even
different, from those of offline-WOM.
All respondent SMEs know about the importance of including social media in their content.
Given their constraints in time and financial means companies intent to involve customers
actively into their SMM content creation. In addition to customers, SMEs also include
employees in their content creation: SMEs thus actively involve both external stakeholders,
i.e. customers, as well as internal stakeholders, i.e. employees.
➢ Benefits of Social Media Marketing for SMEs
1. Increased brand exposure
2. Increased targeted traffic such as 400% growth
3. Leads generation- Every person who likes Facebook page of the company, or follows
the Twitter profile is a potential customer. Therefore, by gaining more and more
followers online, brands can raise their chances of generating new customers. Once
the visitors feel interested by the brand, they will become valuable leads.
4. Up to 70% reduction in marketing budget reported.
5. Reach target audience-Social Media sites are storing all kinds of data on their users,
such as age, gender, geographical location and interests.
 6. Competitor monitoring -Any brand can watch and read closely what is taking place on
its competitors’ website, blogs, and Social Media sites.
7. Customer interaction- This helps SMEs to improve their brand image and increase
customer loyalty because consumers get a more personal and qualitative treatment for
the product or service that they paid for, in form of help with difficulties, guidelines
of usage, or can leave negative comments if the product or service is not at the
expected level.
Social Media Marketing for SMEs also requires knowledge and a lot of work, and of course
has its own challenges and risks before achieving success.
SMEs need to engage human and time resources to manage their Social Media presence.
Employees engaged in Social Media activities should be highly skilled and trained in order to
respond effectively to every question and complain that consumers have. Also, Social media
employees have to be very active and produce new content regularly depending on the type
of SMEs, in order to stay in the radar of the consumers; but SMEs need to be careful not to
publish irrelevant content. The outcomes of the Social Media Marketing need to be controlled
and measured in order to understand how efficient this strategy is, and determine whether this
strategy is working and what is not.
SMEs also face reputational, legal and operational risks. One of the main risks for SMEs
using Social Media Marketing is potential damage to their reputation by using their Social
Media sites ineffectively. Overuse of advertising, presenting products and services in a
commercial way may annoy the audience. Employees can also damage a SME image really
bad, by showing bad behaviours on Social Media channels or posting embarrassing
information.
Secondly, Social Media makes a whole new world of privacy, security, intellectual property,
employment practices, and other legal risks possible. The Social Media employees need to
understand information technology law before engaging in social media activities. Security
and operational risks are also high and may be considered a hold back for adoption of Social
Media Marketing, security risks occur when malware, viruses or spyware are downloaded
through the Social Media sites, security concerns are a major negative factor, because SMEs
are afraid that they may be the victims of financial risks. Also, there are intellectual property
and media risks concerning the protection of third-parties or the publication of fake positive
reviews.
In general, Social Media Marketing is a really useful and powerful marketing tool that not
every SME knows how to use properly yet, especially those in emerging countries. It is still a
new way of marketing and it needs to be implemented through a real and concretely defined
strategy.
 References

Barnard,C., Bakkers,J., Wünsche,S., (2017), The road to the digital future of SMEs,

https://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/pdf/Insights%20Guides/The%20SMEs%20changing

%20the%20world.pdf

Karimi,S.,, Naghibi,H., (2015), SMM strategies for SMES,

http://ijibm.site666.com/IJIBM_Vol7No4_Nov2015.pdf#page=91

Kraus S., Gast J., Schleich M., Jones P, Ritter, (2019), Content is king: How SMEs create

content for social media marketing under limited resources 420-422,

http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=4&sid=371cbeb7-3f95-40da-9bfb-

4312b17e478c%40sessionmgr101

https://www.invoiceberry.com/blog/boost-social-media-presence-smes-freelancers/

Öztamura ,D.,Sarper,I., (2014), Exploring the role of social media for SMEs: as a new

marketing strategy tool for the firm performance perspective,

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042814051167

Rugova, B.,Prenaj,B.,(2016), Social media as marketing tool for SMEs: opportunities and

challenges,

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Burim_Prenaj/publication/310607745_Social_media_as

_marketing_tool_for_SMEs_opportunities_and_challenges/links/58337cf908aef19cb81cb394

/Social-media-as-marketing-tool-for-SMEs-opportunities-and-challenges.pdf