Unleashing Growth: The transformative Power of Social Media Marketing for Kerala’s SMEs

Abstract

Social Media Marketing (SMM) has become a tool of competitive advantage and sustainability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) especially in the developing regional economies. Although it has become increasingly relevant, there is still lack of empirical evidence on the dimensions behind SMEs adoption of SMM as far as the Indian context is concerned. The purpose of the study is to empirically determine and confirm the latent factors of the adoption of Social Media Marketing among SMEs in Kerala with the help of the factor analytical methods. The selected participants comprised of 200 owners and managers of SMEs in Kerala in manufacturing, service, and trading sectors who are the primary data collection tool through a structured questionnaire. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure and Bartlett-Test of Sphericity were used to determine that the data contained in the suits of the factor analysis. The Explanation provided by varimax rotation (Principal Component Analysis) using the EFA indicated that there are five defining factors of SMM adoption, through which they affect the adoption of SMM, which are Marketing Performance Enhancement, Cost Efficiency, Digital Readiness, Managerial Support and External Market Pressure and all these factors stated above explain 72.43 per cent. of overall variance. The results indicate that perceived increase in marketing performance and cost effectiveness are the most contributing factors of adoption of SMM among SMEs although organizational preparedness and external competitive pressures are significant. The research value is found in the fact that the study offers empirically tested dimensions of the SMM adoption under a regional SME environment and offers practical implications to SME owners, policymakers and digital marketing professionals aiming to further facilitate the acquisition of effective SMM adoption practices. These findings have significant policy consequences regarding the development of specific capacity-building interventions and the development of policy interventions to help hasten the pace of digital transformation among Kerala SMEs.