FROM LIKES TO SALES: STUDY ON ENHANCING SOCIAL MEDIA PERFORMANCE FOR INDONESIAN SMES

Abstract

Since 2010, social media use for business purposes has seen tremendous expansion. Businesses that implement a solid social media marketing plan may see enhanced results through improved performance on these channels. Though businesses increasingly rely on intuitive and trial-and-error techniques when developing their social media marketing strategy, we identify effective marketing strategies designed for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to optimize social media performance. As part of their marketing strategies, SMEs should moderate social media-based customer engagement to achieve maximum leverage. Our study employed quantitative purposive sampling to collect and analyze data from 265 food and beverage SMEs located in Solo, Semarang, Kudus and Jepara. Afterward, we utilized Structural Equation Modelling AMOS data collected through a questionnaire to test our empirical model and validate its prediction capabilities. Our findings demonstrate how effective social media marketing strategies can increase customer engagement with social media-based customer interactions and positively affect performance on these channels. Furthermore, SMEs should utilize brand exposure strategies through social media marketing in order to further boost social media-based customer interactions.