Memoire M2 - Pierre Doumit

Saint Joseph University.
Faculté de Gestion et de Management.
Case Studies on the adoption of Social Media by Lebanese SMEs.

Second year of Master’s thesis.
Option: Management.
Prepared by:
Doumit Pierre.
Under the direction of Dr. Karine Aoun Barakat.

Beirut, 2018.
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Managerial summary.
In recent times, social media is more and more adopted in the Business world. Today, companies are
using social media as an additional way to support their internal communication and staying in
contact with customers.
However, a research was devoted to the adoption of social media in the case of small and medium-
sized enterprises, which are of high importance economically and socially speaking. The purpose of
this research is to explore the usage, adoption, and benefits of social media in the heart of SMEs
based on concrete examples about studies done by some well known organisations worldwide and a
series of semi-directive interviews done with three owners of Lebanese SMEs was conducted. The
findings of this research will foster an understanding of the business value that can be derived from
social media by small and medium enterprises like for example: brand building, interactivity, buzz
building, consumer insights, broad reach and an enhanced marketing effectiveness. Without
forgetting that the number of users of social media nowadays is increasing like a rocket to reach
3.02 billions of users by 2021.
Findings based on both, the practical and theoretical parts of this research indicates that SMEs
began using social media because of its strong positive impact on each and every activity of small
businesses, especially on their financial performance (profits), plus, it is a way to enhance the image
of small businesses if used properly and in the most effective and efficient ways knowing that this
type of companies can’t afford to pay big amounts of money to invest in the traditional marketing
ways (billboards, sponsorship, TV/Radio ads). And finally, social media will play a key role in the
future of marketing, by replacing customer annoyance with engagement.
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Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank every person who participated directly and indirectly in the development of
this thesis.
First of all, I need to thank my tutor Dr. Karine Aoun Barakat for all the time she has devoted to me
during this semester, for her guidance, advice and ongoing monitoring throughout the period of the
preparation of the dissertation .
I would like also to thank Université Saint Joseph for the help given to us through the various
courses provided during the master's programs, as well as “Faculté de Gestion et de Management”
who always provided us with necessary and adequate knowledge to succeed in the market.
Without doubt, I cannot forget to thank the people who gave me their time and attentions among
who were able to make themselves available to provide valuable insights for the realisation of this
work and all the people who participated indirectly in the accomplishment of this thesis, for their
reading and their constructive criticism.
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Table of content:
Introduction:
1. Social Media…………………………………………………………………………………..7.
1.1. Introduction to social media………………………………………………………….7.
1.1.1. The importance of social media……………………………………………7.
1.1.2. Social media strategies……………………………………………………..8.
1.1.3. Online communities………………………………………………………..9.
1.1.4. Buyer persona…………………………………..………………………….10.
1.1.5. Characteristics of social media…………………………………………….11.
1.2. Social media platforms……………………………………………………………….12.
1.2.1. Sustainability of your social media platform………………………………12.
1.2.2. Blogging platforms…………………………………………………………13.
1.2.2.1. Business-to-Consumer platforms………………………………..13.
1.2.2.2. Business-to-Business platforms…………………………………14.
1.3. Social media optimisation…………………………………………………………….15.
2. Social media adoption in SMEs……………………………………………………………..…17.
2.1. Defining digital presence…………………………………………………………….17.
2.2. The rise of social media-based brand…………………………………………………17.
2.3. Social media presence………………………………………………………………..18.
2.4. Owned, earned and paid content……………………………………………………..19.
2.5. Building a successful user experience………………………………………………..20.
2.6. Digital and social media marketing…………………………………………………..21.
2.6.1. Understanding digital and Social media marketing……………………..…22.
2.6.2. Adoption of social media marketing within SMEs……………………..…22.
2.6.3. Factors for adopting social media marketing in SME’s……………………23.
2.6.4. Success and failure in digital marketing …………………………………..25.

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2.7. Actions that makes people follow brands on social media……………………………26.
2.8. Reasons why every SME should adopt social media…………………………………27.
3. Interviews…………………………………………………………………………………….…28.
3.1. Qualitative research…………………………………………………………………..28.
3.2. Interpretation………………………………………………………………………….28.
4. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………31.
5. Webographie…………………………………………………………………………………….32.
6. Appendix………………………………………………………………………………………..34.
6.1. Questionnaire…………………………………………………………………………34.
6.2. Answers……………………………………………………………………………….35.
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Introduction:
The adoption of social media in the day to day life of humans has influenced the way they conduct
business these days. This phenomenon has changed the business and corporate world, and today the
number of businesses joining social media platforms is increasing. Organisations all over the world
are spending energy, time and money to build their social media public pages and boost their
standing in the global business space.
Therefore, my research will be based on two parts:
To begin with the first part which is the theoretical part and which contains the first two chapters of
this thesis. Through this section, we will try to understand in the first chapter what is social media,
its key factors, strategies and characteristics. In addition, the second chapter talks about the
adoption of social media in Small and Medium enterprises and its importance based on studies and
examples.
The second part includes the practical part and which forms the context of my research: using the
qualitative approach, semi-directive interviews were done to understand the impact of social media
on small and medium businesses. After gathering answers from 3 owners of Lebanese SMEs, an
interpretation of all the answers was done to understand exactly their point of vues. And finally, a
conclusion takes place to answer and validate the first part of my research.
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1. Social media.
1.1. Introduction to social media:
Using internet technology has become a common practice in each workplace. Internet enabled
communication media, that helps organisations conducting business anytime from anywhere. A
number of studies has investigated the use of Social Media among SMEs and found that those
SMEs were using Social Media for various organisational objectives such as: customer service,
problem resolution, sales, marketing, communication, driving cultural change, advertising,
innovation, information technology, advertising on the social network and internet marketing.
Adapting social media as a platform for business has become a must nowadays. Social media is
increasingly becoming a popular choice of promoting business as it allows communications to go
beyond a one-to-one conversation and now becomes a conversation of many-to-many. Business
owners can fully utilise Social media functions for selling, advertising and marketing at a cheaper
cost. They can use social media functions also, to promote their products, services and brands such
as sharing, messaging and notifying.
As there are low barriers to the usage of social networking technologies, SMEs can use social media
in the same ways that large firms can. SME’s uses Social media for their daily transactions as the
cost is minimal and requires low level of IT skills.
1.1.1. The Importance of social media:
The implementation of social media in business is growing. With more people joining social media
sites and using them regularly and efficiently, the social media is booming like never before and
industry is bound to become bigger in the coming years.
Social media is the most popular way for online interaction. Organisations are recognising this trend
and telling their stories through social media in ways that show their human side. In countries with
high social media adoption rates, the majority of users tend to avoid paid advertising and
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marketing. As a result of this avoidance, social media optimisation (SMO) is very important to
succeed the marketing strategy.
Social media connects people and enable them to communicate between themselves and with the
organisation. The main purpose of social media is to build and increase a brand’s visibility, through
communicating and building the best relationships with potential customers.
1.1.2. Social media strategies:
Social media interaction falls into 4 main functions: Marketing, Sales, operations and customer
service.
While opening a social media channel has to be always conscious about the different applications
that should be expected for each and every function and the results through “Key Performance
Indicators” for measuring their success or failure.
• Main strategies for social media use in the organisation:
When it comes to the application of marketing which is the first function, using conversations to
understand the buyer’s needs, gathering feedbacks about the brand, offer high quality content about
the offering and encouraging positive reviews and learning from negative experiences can improve
the understanding of the buyer’s persona, provide up-to-date contacts, positive brand mentions and
the acquisition of social capital.
Regarding the second function which is sales, the company should identify the influencers and
engage them in mutually beneficial ways without forgetting to involve the influencers in
interactions and co-creation as part of the sales team in order to obtain bigger sales numbers, a
bigger number of brand ambassadors and a bigger number of affiliates.
Further more, customer service is the third function, and it’s application takes place when the
customers log their support questions online so that they can be resolved publicly. Without
forgetting to mention that enabling customers to help one another and solve problems related to the
product or service on the platform will certainly increase the number of support issues resolved
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online, it will also increase the volume of publicly available and indexed support topics, decreases
the volume of support phone calls, emails and other private interactions and finally, the acquisition
of a bigger social capital.
To conclude with the last function which is operations, that can be applied focussing internally on
interactions that act as knowledge management tools, helping each other find better ways of doing
the job and introducing platforms for sharing internal communications. All these ways of applying
social media in operations can result in bigger volume and accuracy of internally available
documents preserving organisational knowledge, increasing the percentage of organisation who’s
participating in maintaining organisational knowledge and it decreases the volume of emails and
attachements.
1.1.3. Online communities:
The one percent rule: this rule divides online users into three categories:
1. 1% creators.
2. 9% contributors
3. 90% lurkers
The observation of this contribution comes from naturally occurring online communities.
• Creators: are the people that visit social media regularly and actively create content. They have a
very strong tie with the society and are usually key influencers. identifying and building a social
capital with the creators of the brand will certainly influence the online community.
• Contributors: They are not as influential as creators, but they have a good understanding of the
digital landscape in relation to the brand. Not all brands can have creators, but they always have
contributors. For example, searching for your brand name on social media and see if any
contributor has mentioned your name somewhere. those individuals are interested in writing a
post for your blog, which they can amplify through their own networks.
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• Lurkers: are the majority of the community, the 90% that will consume your product without
contributing to social media. They are silent listeners an readers. Lurkers are the vast majority of
the audience, so it is important to keep them engaged in a way that keeps them comfortable.
1.1.4. Buyer persona.
To begin with the persona which isn’t a new concept anymore because it has been adopted in direct
marketing long before becoming included in the digital marketing. Personas are used in considering
desires, goals and the limitations of users and brand buyers. This consideration needs to guide
decisions about the goods offered, interactions, the service and the user’s journey towards repeat
purchases. Data about consumers is abstract, in that it defines key demographic attributes like for
exemple the location and the age. Using the buyer persona goes further by planting a human and
personal story between the consumers that gives a focus for defining the required marketing content
as well as the style, tone and delivery strategy for that content. Recognising a buyer persona is the
key to enable the company to organise the marketing strategy, in order to reach efficiently those
who are more likely to become long-time consumers, influencers and advocates.
Key aspects of the buyer persona:
• Who: Short biographie of the ideal consumer, that includes where he works, his responsibilities
and his commitment to his family and friends.
• What: description of the buyer persona’s goals (primary and secondary).
• Where: representation of where the buyer persona spends his time both offline and online.
• Channels: illustration of the social network’s type and other channels that the buyer persona
prefers to use regularly.
• Content: interpretation of the types of contents that the buyer persona prefers.
• Trust touchpoints: recognising where your content and the preferred channels of the buyer
persona can criss-cross, and create trust in the brand.
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• Pain touchpoints: define the objections that the buyer’s persona have to the brand, the used
channel or the content.
• Customer, consumer or influencer: knowing exactly the role of the buyer persona as a consumer,
customer, an influencer and it can be a combination of all three.
• “They say”: usage of quotes from the buyers persona in order to make them come alive.
• “We say”: adopting sample quotes for the messages that might be sent to the buyer persona.
• Keywords: define the exact keywords and phrases in order to associate them with the buyer
persona.
1.1.5. Characteristics of social media.
• Interactivity
Interactivity, as a combination of active intelligence, rich content and collaborative communications

in business settings, creates a compelling user experience.
In order to measure the interactivity of a social media platform, you should take into consideration
which platform have the ability to provide both informational and interpersonal interactions among
users.
• Quality:
Information quality indicates the availability of valuable informations in the timely manner of
content updates. System quality recognise the maintenance of a strong and accessible functionality
that can help customers to share informations conveniently and immediately. Determinants of
information quality should include completeness, accuracy, format of produced information and
currency. In addition, the system’s quality determinants are: response time, reliability, accessibility,
flexibility and the integration of information system.
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• Knowledge sharing mechanism:
It facilitates the transfer of knowledge between people and able to augment the value of knowledge
through expanding knowledge and speeding up distribution. Organisations usually establish an
internal knowledge market in order to form and distribute knowledge in virtual and real interactive
space. Based on this, you can measure the knowledge sharing characteristic of your social media
platform in terms of the links between the incentive mechanism and members that facilitates
knowledge exchange and member communication.
1.2. Social media platforms.
1.2.1. Sustainability of your social media platform.
There are major geographic differences when it comes to managing and developing social media
activities which makes social media platforms come and go. This presents a challenge for the
organisation. For exemple, Facebook is a good network for B2C communications in Europe,
however it is mainly blocked in China. A more robust approach is to adopt the tactic of creating a
blog that is hosted on our organisation’s website and is used as the main hub for engagement with
the online community.
A blog should be at the centre of our channel sub-strategy implementation. it is the key owned
channel for creating synergies with other channels and should also be the central hub for our content
sub-strategy. A blog enables amplification across the owned channels and provides content that the
buyer persona can share across a wider network of channels. (Ref: Digital and social media
marketing; A results driven approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid,
Ana Cruz. 2017)
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1.2.2. Blogging platforms.
Blogging platforms are softwares or services used to publish the business’s content into the internet
in the form of a blog. A blog is a very good way to combine images, text, video and other types of
media into high-quality content. There are many blogging platforms, some of them can be set up on
the company’s own website, some are free and some of them are existing websites were the
company can create an account.
The key for selecting the right platform depends on the strategic goals already adapted. Here are
some of the most common options for blogging:
• WordPress: it’s an open source of blogging platforms, the software code is free and it is
developed by many thousands of people around the globe, because of it’s low cost, it is used on a
vast number of websites as both a blogging platform and CMS, wealth of themes and powerful
features and plugins.
• Blogger: it is a google-owned platform set up for blogging. blogger.com is a freely hosted

service, where every business can easily have its domain name for free. (Ref: Digital and social
media marketing; A results driven approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir
Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
1.2.2.1. Business-to-Consumer platforms.
B-to-C or business to consumer is a business model that is based on a settlement between a

company that offers a product or a service and customers who profits from these products through
a company website that features their goods online.
Three of the top social media platforms existing: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram considered the
business to consumer platforms as a mean to introduce marketing as the new strategy.
• Facebook: since Facebook began in 2004, it has grown to become the largest social network
platform for individuals to connect with family and friends. As a result Facebook has also
become a striking marketing platform. Subscribers can create pages and groups to reach
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customers and also have the possibility to buy Facebook advertising to reach out new purchasers
and engaging them with new products. This mechanism enables easy structure for competition as
well as occupying real time interaction.
• Twitter: launched in 2006 Twitter has been known as the best example of micro-blogging
platforms that allows people to communicate as tweets. it was the driving force behind the
concept of ”#” witch allows users to identify a certain conversation of topic with a tagged
keyword. communities adapted Twitter because it is easy to use, works in realtime and easy to
share tweets. as a result, Twitter content is highly responsive to breaking stories and curent
affairs, witch makes in return, tweets more attractive to share.
• Instagram: released for public in 2010, Instagram is a video-photo sharing application and is one
of the newest social media channels. Instagram content is shared uniquely image based and this
focus has enabled individual brands and organisations to expand their creativity and to share their
visual stories. this platform has been loaded by brands for its ability to gain highly engaged
audience and to build a visual brand. (Ref: Digital and social media marketing; A results driven
approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017).
1.2.2.2. Business-to-Business platforms.
A Business to Business company is basically a business relationship between a wholesaler and a

retailer, or a manufacturer and a wholesaler. Such goods as grain, plastic or chemicals don't always
have a practical use for customers but are very important for wholesale distribution, which is the
base of the business to business model.
• LinkedIn: Founded in 2002, LinkedIn is a well known social media that allows users to post their
professional career history, professional achievements and education. The addition of open and
closed groups, company pages, allows conversations about business-related topics. As a B2B
social media network, LinkedIn is used to promote, connect and engage with new customers.
• Youtube: is a video streaming application, free, and easy to use. web video continue to be created
and watched by a huge audience, with a content including private shows, how to tutorial videos,
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3D content and even interactive. Building video content that your target market will engage with
and want to share is a key aspect that shouldn’t be missed from the sub-strategy content.
• Google+: Started in 2011, it is google’s fourth project. Google+ includes discussion groups, a
timeline of events and Google hangouts, which allow video conferences and the ability to record
to youtube. Many benefits are available if your organisation is available on google+, particularly
if you want to appear in Google local search result.
• WeChat: Chinese application that allows to share videos and photos, as well as video conferences
and games. this application is basically used by Chinese people but we can also find a growing
and significant percentage of users form outside china using WeChat. (Ref: Digital and social
Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017).
1.3. Social media optimisation:
The main purpose for measuring KPI’s in social media, is by enabling the look beyond headline
figures, like for exemple the number of likes on Instagram or Facebook, and drill down to the
success in engaging with the buyer persona and achieving strategic goals. According to what social
media says, the company is aiming for an engagement with the creators of its brand and to convert
the lurkers into contributors. In order to achieve this goals, the company needs to understand the
buyer persona’s interests and actions on social media. (Ref: Digital and social media marketing; A
results driven approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
As we can see, from this chart the number of users of social media is increasing year after year
from 0.97 billions in 2010 to reach as expected in 2021, a total of 3.02 billions users worldwide.
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2. Social media adoption in SMEs:
In recent years, adapting social media was expending in SMEs. Companies use social media as a
way to get in contact with their support internal communication and collaboration customers. The
main purpose of this chapter is to examine the usage, adoption, and benefits of social media in
SME’s.
2.1. Defining digital presence.
What is digital presence? it is the sum of all the online transactions managed by the organisation
(social media, blogs, websites) in addition of all the online activities carried out by the key
stakeholders, such as customers and employees.
the business’s digital presence isn’t only for sharing information but also for building credibility,
engagement, trust and brand loyalty. (Ref: Digital and social media marketing; A results driven
approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
2.2. The rise of social media-based brand.
In our days, the adoption of social media along with the new technologies, mean that customers can
now create and publish content themselves, and this indicates that the brand is being build right
now. all the customers, pressure groups and employees are all working to present the company’s
brand through user generated content like blogs, tweets, videos, photos and reviews. Eliminating the
participation from this process, can result with no guarantees that this image of the brand will
reflect the company positively or even accurately. In order to build brand equity and mesure
resonance with the buyer persona, the company’s brand will have to facilitate interactions,
relationships and conversations to be a social brand that engages and listens. Conversations with all
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the stakeholders who are able to communicate with each others shouldn’t be dialogues but forums,
like for exemple, the ability to view all the comments, products and the usage of social media to
share, like, comment and tweets.
One of the most important activities for engaging and delivering brand experience is creating
content that facilitates sharing and dialogues. enabling the brand experience comes from the
combination of the company’s channels, content and data sub-strategies. In contrast to traditional
approaches to marketing isn’t brand-oriented and all people wants to connect with other people
rather than communicating with a brand.
Building a brand needs to create and offer content through channels that will invite the customer to
the conversation, and will certainly get others talking about the brand. The company’s strategy
should include a sub-strategy data that closes the loop and listens to the buyer persona in a way
enabling him to respond personally and intelligently. (Ref: Digital and social media marketing; A
results driven approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
2.3. social media presence.
Social media presence is something very essentiel in order to build a brand. almost all social media
channels including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube allow customisation for individuals
as well as brands. The brand created will shape the company’s social media presence and it will be
a key to consider for the channels sub-strategy.
In order to start with a successful social media presence, as a first step, the company should start
with her name. In exchange for the name to rank well in search engines, the company’s name on
social media should appear in the most familiar way that users are searching in the organisation.
Further more, almost all social media allows every business to add a profile picture. bigger
businesses will put their logo and consistent naming of the brand, and this approach is applied to all
types of organisations. Sometimes, the brand name is already taken, so in this case the company
should add something like official next to its name or the brand location. The third option is to use
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specialism to gain some extra naming advantage (for example using specialist sector positioning
such as “sports financing”.
Some social media uses the cover picture in which they put pictures for their new products. As for
usernames and profile pictures, those should stay consistent through all the company’s channels to
deliver the same brand identity and message. (Ref: Digital and social media marketing; A results
driven approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
2.4. Owned, earned and paid content.
Engaging content that sparks conversations and makes users want to share or comment is one of the
most critical ways for a brand to attract attention. Content can be placed in three different channels,
and they are described as owned, earned and paid content.
• Owned content and channels includes products and brand websites, campaign sites, blogs,
mobile application and social media profiles. we can also find traditional businesses that does not
operate on the internet offices and stores which connects the company’s digital activities with its
buyer persona.
• Earned content: If owned channels and content are the destination then the earned content is the
vehicle that helps people reach there. It is essentially the online word of mouth, usually seen as
mentions, “viral” tendencies, reposts, shares, recommendations, reviews or content picked up by
3rd party sites.
• Paid-for content is an external endorsement which can be earned through paid advertising noting
that it has a lower level of credibility when compared with the earned content but it can be a very
powerful and useful tool, like for example, offline and online advertising and retargeting can
generate brand awareness and will certainly drive traffic to the company’s website (sending an
advertisement to a website visitor after leaving the website without buying).
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Get
earned
Paid:
media
Advertising,
through
retargeting, paid
paid
influencers, paid
Earned: activities
promotions
mentions,
shares,
reposts, Manage earned,
reviews owned and paid
together for
maximum
strategic impact
high Expose
quality your own
owned media with
media will paid
generate activities
earned
media
Owned:
Web properties, Blogs,
Social media channels
Source: owned, paid and earned content and channels (adapted from www.titan-so.com/
newarticles/trifect.html).
2.5. Building a successful user experience.
Channels that a company has the most control over are the owned ones. Using owned channels can
make the company respond rapidly to all the external changes around her, and the most valuable
criteria for the brand content is the brand positioning. Building a successful user experience can
lead to positive behavioural intentions, contentement and sometimes emotional connection with the
brand.
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The main target in creating a successful user experience isn’t just about satisfying the buyer persona
with convenience, reliability and functionality, but to “WOW” him and making him visit back the
company’s website and buy goods again and again without forgetting to mention that sharing this
experience with relatives and friends is a very important point. The user experience plays a very
important role in converting a customer/user into a brand advocate. The company’s aim is to
improve the customer loyalty and satisfaction counting on the ease of use, utility and pleasure
provided by the owned channels. (Ref: Digital and social media marketing; A results driven
approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
According to Mahlke and Thüring, three user experience factors can assist in appraising a website
or social media page experience and to influence users behaviours and decisions positively:
1. Perceived instrumental qualities: what a user find easily useful and usable (learnability,
controllability and effectiveness).
2. Emotional reactions: how much the interaction is enjoyable and how does the content
transforms the user’s greediness state of being. (individual feelings)
3. Perceived non-instrumental qualities: is what the consumer believes to be appealing and how
much attractive he is. (beauty and pleasing appearance)
Finally, users experience is fundamentally focused on the user itself and on where value will be
achieved through the users experience of the channel.
2.6. Digital and social media marketing in SMEs.
In order to explain digital and social media marketing in the heart of all SMEs, each small business
should take into consideration that only 27% of small businesses worldwide only don’t use social
media according to a study done by “National Small Business Association”. and based on this study,
the following graph represent the most used social media platforms by SMEs:
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LinkedIn
FaceBook
None
Twitter
Google +
Youtube
Pinterest
Foursquare
0 15 30 45 60
Source: National Small Business Association. Social media is important for small business owners.
2.6.1. Understanding digital and social media marketing.
Simplifying and understanding in an easier and clearer way the basics of digital and social media
marketing is the essential step to begin with when it comes to take a strategic “marketing first”
approach to the digital business, without forgetting to link the meaning of these basics and how to
simplify them with more recognisable business conditions.
2.6.2. Adoption of social media marketing within SMEs.
Social media is a key factor for the growth and success of a business but of course there are
advantages and inconveniences while adopting social media. Social media can offer many
advantages like brand and buzz building, interactivity, consumer insights, enhanced marketing
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effectiveness, cost saving and getting closer to customers and the most importent advantage that
social media has is the word of mouth because through this form, old customers can bring new ones
in a record of time and with significant credibility. It is very crucial to stay close to the customers at
all times, and this possible through the availability of social media.
Almost every customer that is connected to the internet and receives a product that he isn’t satisfied
from will, at the moment go to social media and leave a feedback and here we can see the response
of the company so they can calm him down before the situation grows and becomes out of control
because sustaining an old customer is much difficult than gaining a new one. (Ref: Digital and
social media marketing; A results driven approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze, Gordon Fletcher,
Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
According to a study done by Booz and company, here are the benefits generated from adopting
social media in the heart of an SME:
Brand Building Interactivity Buzz Building Consumer Insights

Enhanced Marketing Effectiveness Broad Reach
90
85
80
75
70
% of respondents
Source: Elmo copy, advertising copywriter and blogging expert. (www.Elmocopy.com)
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2.6.3. Factors for adopting social media marketing in SME’s.
After examining a group of studies that represent different types of internal and external factors that
are related to the adoption of social media marketing, here are some of them:
• End Users:
They are a major influencers to the adoption of technologie process between SMEs. Training
systems in SMEs will allow the conduction of knowledge required to use the new tools, and at the
same time to modify the workers attitude concerning technological change. Inadequate and absence
of technical knowledge, in addition to a little appreciation of the advantages of e-commerce, will
remain a major difficulty for SMEs.
• Organisational:
Management will simplify and justify the interchange of intersection in the new structure. Top
management controls resource availability, ensures sufficient money in addition to time and human
talents for the induction and achievement of new e-commerce program. For instance, enthusiasm
and awareness about up coming technologies, utility of e-commerce on part of the managers and the
existence of related innovation and experimentation will influence positively the adoption. Firms
that has IT departments are larger in size, however information intensity and the competitiveness of
each environment are not significant influencers between followers and non-followers of
technology.
• Technological:
Nowadays, no systems are sophisticated enough to measure the efficiency of e-marketing because
the identification of sales derived from technology is very difficult when it comes to the cost
involved and the return on investment without forgetting that many researches includes cost as an
important variable to determine the factors that influences the adoption. Studies shows that users
has became more interested towards internet, however, the company can have some concerns and
expectations about the credibility of technology when it comes to investing money. Finally,
Innovation in technology has also a concern regarding the compatibility of technologie with other
businesses related environment within organisations.
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• Management:
In SMEs, e-marketing adoption process is directly involved with top management where all
decisions from daily transactions to future expenditure are made by them. Management role leads to
a higher level of participation and commitment among workers in their firm, and consequently, a
more robust involvement in technology adoption. Leaders who have knowledge towards e-
commerce implementation support and encourage innovations.
• Business Environment:
SMEs recognise technology as a tool to stay in competition. Whenever competitors start using
technology to stay ahead, SMEs tend to start embracing new technologies. Policy and initiatives
influence, Government influence and adopting basic infrastructure such as high speed internet
connection is very important in order to encourage the usage of technology. Economy conditions,
Globalisation and market trend are external factors that affect SMEs decision and they also play the
role of mediating factors for the integration of social media marketing. (Ref: Digital and social
Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017).
2.6.4. Success and failure in digital marketing.
Identifying the hallmarks of success and failure in the organisation is an instructive process in
developing the organisation’s digital strategy.
adopting social media in a company can be very beneficial if it is well used, but never forget that it
might also fail and this can cause damages. Here are some signals of failure for a digital strategy:
lack of digital strategy planing, lack of sufficient skilled staff for social media activities, lack of
high level organisational sponsors, lack of innovation and originality and lack of agility. this is why
in response to those signals, the company should always take actions like for example: impulsive
digital marketing actions with no assessment of the risks or the costs, the need to always learn and a
holistic understanding of all digital activities in relation with the buyer persona, new organisational
structures as well as infrastructures are needed, sacrificing time and effort to understand the buyer
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persona and how an organisation’s services and goods are provided, firms should be technologically
proactive to market conditions in order to continue to deliver unique value to their buyer persona.
(Ref: Digital and social media marketing; A results driven approach, Edited by: Aleksej Heinze,
Gordon Fletcher, Tahir Rashid, Ana Cruz. 2017)
Referring to a study done by “Online Marketing Coach”, SME’s main mistakes that causes the
failure of their digital marketing are:
1. 96% don’t offer guides and similar reports on their home page.
2. 82% don’t reference their social media profiles.
3. 72% don’t have any calls to action on their interior pages.
4. 70% don’t display clear calls to action for anything on their home pages, such as how-to
guides, demos, interactive tools, e-mail newsletters, specials.
5. 68% don’t include e-mails addresses on their home pages.
6. 38% of websites with an e-mail address bury it on the home page.
7. 27% don’t include a phone number on their home page.
2.7. Actions that makes people follow brands on social media.
The first reason that makes a customer interested in the company’s social media accounts is being
interested by the product or the service that this company provide. the second main reason that
makes a client follow social media pages is being interested in promotions that the company
propose to its customer through posts, broadcasts, blogs on social media accounts. Regarding the
third reason, some clients might follow social media pages because they find their posts
entertaining. Many social media based brands give incentives for indirect sales agents in order to
sell more of their product. And finally being interested in the industry, communicating with the
brand and friends follows are also reasons that make people follow the company’s social media
platforms.
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Interested in the product (%)
Interested in promotions (%)
Entertainement (%)
Offer an incentive (%)
Interested in the the industry (%)
Communication with brand (%)
Friends follow (%)
0 16 32 48 64 80
Source: the Q3 2016 sprout social index
2.8. Reasons why every SME should adopte social media.
Social media plays a very important role for improving a small business output. Here are some
reasons why, every SME should adopt social media:
• 74% of adults in the world uses social media platforms.
• Social media represents around 57% of SME’s sales funnel.
• Three over five Small businesses say that they have gained new customers after using social
media.
• Around 10 million social mentions each month of fortune 100 companies.
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3. Interviews.
3.1. Qualitative research.
According to Taylor and Bogdan (1984), the qualitative research analyses descriptive data, such as
said or written words and observes the behaviour of people. this research refers to a method
interested in the context and the observation of a phenomenon in the real world, because It deals
with data that is difficult to count or quantify. A quantitative research does not reject statistic and
numbers, but it doesn't give them the first place.
In this type of research, the researcher is curious to know the factors conditioning a certain
behaviour of the social actor interviewed with a reality. He uses a model where he focusses on the
processes that develop within the actors (here, I am interested in knowing the impact of social
media on the notoriety of SMEs).
Qualitative input is difficult to quantify and measure, it can yet reveal valuable perspectives and
attitudes that cannot be penetrated through a quantitative approach. The fundamental character of a
qualitative research allows the gathering of new informations on specific areas of research, usually,
through a dialogue between the interviewer and the respondent (Broda, 2006; Naderer & Balzer,
2007).
3.2. Interpretation.
After introducing the qualitative approach, three semi-directive interviews where made with three
SME owners:
• Mr. Ziad Abdelnour, owner of Tailors Bar. (F&B sector)
• Dr. Jad Naissi, owner of Primal7. (Medical sector)
• Mrs. Soha Abou Abdallah, owner of Style Chic. (Fashion sector)
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In the purpose of discovering the impact of adopting Social Media in small businesses, choosing
those three businesses was based on the high usage rate of their social media platforms. Based on
this, a questionnaire made of 11 questions related to social media and its impact, was given to those
entrepreneurs and here is the summary of the answers: (all the questions and answers are available
in the appendix).
- Starting with the first question answered, talking about what does every SME owner looks for
while using social media. the most given reasons where demonstrating the true identity of the
business, a funny and interactive way to introduce the company and its activity, reflecting the
strong points of the company and staying updated with their competitors activities…
Tailors Bar. Primal 7. Style Chic.
• D e m o n s t r a t i n g t h e • Reflecting the strong points of • Stay updated with all the

the company. competitors activities.
business’s identity that none
of its competitors has
• An easy way to market my • Helps the patient to interact • Collecting more audience.
digitally with the company.
business and reach a bigger
market.
• Funny and very interactive
way to show my clients the
quality, professionalism and
the friendly image of the
business
- Moving to the second question, the reasons why they adopted social media where:
• Keeping the business in the customer’s mind.
• Updating customers with upcoming events.
• Building a better image of the company.
• Expose the product/service to social media users.
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• Keeping the name of the • Easy way, low cost, low entry • As an online shop, the only way
barriers. to show their products is social
business in customers mind. media.
• Keep the customers updated • Builds a better image of the • Huge number of social media
company. users.
with all the new items that
they add to the menu
• Updating the customers with
upcoming events.
- Based on the third question, the most common target market was social media users in general,
loyal clients and potential clients that can be interested in the business. but each and every SME
has her own target market due to the difference in their activities.
• Loyal clients. • Young generation using social • Lebanese women that uses
media between the age of 15 social media, interested in
and 25 years old, are athletics brands and fashion.
that needs treatments to avoid
injuries.
• People over 18 years old and • People using social media • Women from all over the Gulf
using social media. between the age of 40 and 60 region.
years old, the most critical age
to get injured.
• New clients that might be • People using social media

interested in what the company having the age of 65 and
serves. above, 70% of them goes under
the knife and they need
rehabilitation.
- The main reasons after seeing social media use as an advantage to increase sales and brand
awareness in question 4, were: being disposed to new potential clients and giving details and
explanations about all the products/services offered.
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• People are interacting with the • Interaction with clients. • Helps them to show the quality
company through social media. and specifications of the
items disposed knowing that it
is a second hand product, and
by this way the business will
gain more and more clients.
• Posting on social media might • More people will be interested in

be disposed to new potential the variety of services that the
clients. company serves.
• Primal 7 is receiving now

around 35% of its patients
through social media
according to a study done by
their financial consultant.
- In the fifth question, the common social media platforms used were Instagram, Facebook and
whatsApp. However some industries uses specific applications related to them directly like for
example “Zomato” is an application used for the F&B sector only.
• Instagram • Instagram. (up to 900 profile • Instagram (4000 followers, and

visits every weak) around 1500 likes on every
post).
• Facebook • Facebook (around 1600 • Facebook (around 1000

viewers for every video post) followers).
• What App. • Whats App.
• Zomato
- When it comes to social media strategy in question 6, every business should always be active on
social media and interact with there clients, know what they want, answer their questions and
take into consideration their reviews and feedbacks.
• Discount coupons. • High quality content resulting • Always trying to gain more
in positive reviews that presents clients to increase market
an added value to the share.
customer services.
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• Being innovative. • Being responsive to the
clients needs.
• Focusing on main events

(happy hours, holidays
schedules)
- Regarding question 7, All the answers if the turnover was affected as expected after using social
media were yes, under one condition, to efficiently and effectively use social media in the heart
of the company.
Yes, increased by 15%. Yes, their profits increased by Knowing that it is an online shop,
80% from what it was in the past. all their customers comes from
social media.
- According to question 8, traditional marketing ways will be replaced by social media due to its
advantages, like for example:
• Social media interacts with customers, traditional marketing ways doesn’t do so.
• Social media is a trend and its features are more efficient for SMEs nowadays then traditional
marketing ways.
• Social media’s cost is less than traditional marketing ways.
• Yes, because social media is • There is more than two • Yes, the spending budgets on
a way to communicate with billion people users of social the digital marketing is
clients and interact with media in the world, it is increasing like a rocket
them. On the other way, already taking the place of while on the other hand the
traditional media gather and traditional marketing ways. marketing budgets for
disseminates news, and traditional marketing ways
continue to do so. is falling down.
- The social media key factors taken into consideration in order to obtain competitive advantages
in question 9, were: staying in connexion with the customer through always posting blogs,
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images and videos, knowing the feedback of the customer, being creative, giving rewards to
followers for sharing, mentioning other people and for winning competitions and recruiting
social media specialists.
Tailors Bar. Primal 7. style Chic.
• Staying in connection with • Creativity of the posts. • Employing an expert,

customers.
responsible of Customer
service.
• Combining different
approaches all exposed on
social media gives the client
a better push to contact the
company.
- Some of the answers to question 10 where for and others where against regarding the idea of
only using social media as a marketing tool to promote a product/service. knowing the
importance of social media nowadays and its impact, every SME should always be updated with
all the upcoming technologies because social media can be replaced with some other ways to
reach clients in the future.
• Yes, social media enough • Social media is a major boost Yes, but the company should
under one condition, to stay to keep any SME in the always be updated with all the
available 24/7 and always m a r k e t a n d b o o s t s i t s new technologies and ideas to
responding as soon as productivity. keep up with competition.
possible to all the questions but its shouldn’t be the only
asked by clients. focus of the company, because
you never know when this
phenomenon will end or if it
will be replaceable with
something else in the future.
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• Always find the balance
between the marketing costs
and its effects.
- To maintain their presence and grow bigger in the last question, SMEs must use social media
based on the answers of the three owners. Social media plays a very important role by staying in
touch with the customer, updating him constantly through posting new products/services, giving
tips and advices, announcing new projects/ events. As a conclusion, social media helps to build a
better relation with the customers and consequentially will lead to grow any small or medium
size business to become larger and reach better performance and results.
• Keeping in touch and • People are spending at least • Companies can reach their
audience efficiently and
communicating with clients 1h a day surfing on social effectively through social
media.
is something very important, media pages, you need to
and the most effective and make sure that your SME
efficient way to do so keeps on popping for
nowadays is social media. advertising and awareness,
giving health tips and how to
live a better life. this way the
company can attract more
clients.
• Building a circle of trust • social media platforms are easy
between the patient and the to access and open to
company through social media. everybody.
• Having a variety of angles when

it comes to targeting the
patient.
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• Summary:
Based on the answers given by the owners of the three chosen SMEs, the adoption of social
media in their businesses is usually a way to reflect the image of the company to customers,
interact with them, display there products/services online and gain a bigger market share.
by targeting social media users, those companies are enlarging their target market because
of the huge number of users nowadays. Due to this huge number of users, displaying those
new products/services on the company’s social media pages will consequentially increase
sales and will lead to a better brand awareness.
Based on the answers given by the interviewees, the most used social media platforms are
Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp were those small and medium sized enterprises should
always be active and interact with their customers in order to gain a better social media
strategy.
It was proven by the three SMEs that the turnover affected positively and as expected after
using social media. Due to this positive impact of the adoption of social media on the
SMEs, the traditional marketing ways will be replaced in the future by social media because
of all the advantages that it can bring to businesses.
in order to maintain their presence and grow bigger, SMEs must use social because of its
very important role by staying in touch with the customer, updating him constantly through
posting new products/services, giving tips and advices, announcing new projects/ events.
As a conclusion, social media helps to build a better relation with the customers and will
lead to grow any small or medium size business to become larger and reach better
performance and results.
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4. Conclusion.
As a conclusion, this study revealed that social media usage has a strong positive impact on each
and every activity of small businesses, especially on their financial performance, in terms of cost
reduction on customer service and marketing, improved brand awareness, information accessibility
and customer relation. In addition , factors such as cost effectiveness, compatibility and interactivity
were identified as aspects that influence social media usage among SMEs.
Social media is a way to enhance the image of small businesses if used properly and in the most
effective and efficient ways that suits the company, because each SME can benefit from social
media advantages in a different way than others do. SMEs are usually businesses that cannot afford
high marketing budgets, thats why, they look for ways to promote themselves in the most efficient,
minimum cost and beneficial ways that social media can bring to them.
To compare between the first part of this study which is the theoretical part that contains all the
basics about social media and its relation with SMEs (strategies, knowledge, sustainability, digital
marketing, types of platforms, studies about SMEs that adopted social media worldwide etc.). The
second part of this research comes to prove in a practical way based on the interviews made with
three Lebanese SME owners what is explained in the first part, and validate the importance of social
media to SMEs of our days.
Finally, social media will play a key role in the future of marketing, by replacing customer
annoyance with engagement, and by helping to transform the traditional marketing ways which
focuses on control by an open and more collaborative approach that is more conducive to succeed in
the modern business environment and helps every small or medium business to enlarge its notoriety
and grow bigger.
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5. Webography/Bibliography:
• Ainin S., Parveen F., Moghavvemi S., Jaafar N., Shuib N., (2015) Factors influencing the use of
social media by SMEs and its performance outcomes. Published by Emerald Group Publishing
Limited, University of Malaya.
• Greenfield M., (2018), Number of social network users worldwide from 2010 to 2021. eMarketer,
Statistica, page 71.
• Heinze A., Fletcher G., Rashid T., Cruz A. (2017). Digital and social media marketing; A results
driven approach. Chapter 8, page190.
• Irwan Dahnil M., Mizal Marzuki K., Langgat J., Fzlinda Fabeil N., (2014), Factors Influencing
SMEs Adoption of Social Media Marketing, Elsevier, Volume 148, pages 119- 126.
• Kakai H., (Fevrier 2008), Contribution à la recherche qualitative, cadre méthodologie de

rédaction de mémoire, Université de Franche-Comté, pages 1- 4.
• Kaplan, A., Haenlein, M., (2010) Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of
Social Media. Business Horizons pages: 53, 59–68.
• Krishnan Nair G., (2017) Social Media Impact on Business Development, Organizational
Performance and B2B Relationships, Chapter 2, page 16 (Thesis in Cardiff Metropolitan
University).
• Meske C., and Stieglitz S., (2013), Adoption and Use of Social Media in Small and Medium-
Sized Enterprises. University of Muenster, pages: 61-75.
• Patton MQ., (2002), Event Marketing In IMC. Chapter 3: Methotology. Page 44-66.
• Survata P., (2016), Turned Off: How Brands Are Annoying Customers on Social media.THE Q3
2016 SPROUT SOCIAL INDEX, follow vs. unfollow.
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6. Appendix:
In the purpose of determining the impact of the adoption of social media on small and medium
enterprises, a study has been done on SME owners from different sectors and having different ages,
cultures, backgrounds, knowledge.
6.1. Questionnaire.
1. What do you look for while using social media in your business?
2. Why did you go for social media in your business?
3. Who are you targeting while using social media?
4. Why do you see social media use as an advantage to increase sales and brand awareness?
5. What are the most used social media platforms in your company?
6. What is your social media strategy?
7. Was your turnover affected as expected after using social media?
8. Do you find that social media could be taking the place of traditional marketing ways in the
futur?
9. What are your social media key factors that you take into consideration in order to obtain a
competitive advantage?
10. Knowing that most of the firms available on the market today use social media due to its low
cost and its efficiency, do you find it enough to keep up with the competition?
11. Do you see social media as a must for SMEs to maintain their presence and grow bigger ? why?
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6.2. Answers.
- The first SME chosen was “Tailors Bar”, a restaurant-bar located in Badaro street known by its
ideal concepts that enables you to live back the vintage moments of Badaro were tailors used to
gather in one place inside the street after work to drink and have fun. The owner of this business
Mr. Ziad Abdelnour will be answering to the questionnaire knowing that he already adopted
social media in his company.
While using social media, I can demonstrate my true identity that none of my competitors has. Plus
using social media is an easy way to market my business and reach a bigger market. and finally I
find social media a funny and very interactive way to show my clients the quality, professionalism
and the friendly image of the business because our slogan is: “Come as a guest and leave as a
friend”.
Personally, social media for me is a way to keep the name of my business in my customers mind
and to keep them updated with all the new items that we add to our menu and with the upcoming
events.
While using social media, I am targeting social media users, people over 18 years old, clubbers,
loyal clients, new clients that might be interested in what we serve.
The usage of social media will increase sales and brand awareness when people starts interacting
with our content, even if their are not willing to buy our products. In addition, every post or blog
that we post on social media will be disposed to new potential clients that can be a loyal customer in
the future and this will increase brand awareness and consequentially increase sales.
40
As a business operating in the F&B sector, the first social media platform that we use is
“ZOMATO” which offer to clients a list of all the businesses available in the F&B sector with
feedbacks, photos, rating and menus with prices, noting that “ZOMATO” keeps all the positive and
especially negative feedbacks to let customers share their experience with each others.
In addition, Facebook is our second most used social media platform because as we know,
Facebook is the leading social media platform that overpassed 2 billion users and this can get us
more and more potential clients.
Finally, WhatsApp is our third social media platform that we use to send broadcasts, flyers, photos
to our loyal customers to stay in touch with them with all the upcoming plans or events, and to
respond to there negative feedbacks in order to keep them satisfied.
We have many social media strategies. The most importants are:
First, discount coupons to customers who tag us in their blogs/pictures on social media.
Second, being innovative on social media is at the same time a challenge and an opportunity to gain
more and more customers in order to optimise our social media strategy.
Finally, focussing on our main events like for exemple happy hours (every day from 4pm till 8pm
including holiday) and holidays entertainment schedules.
After using social media our turnover increased by 15% in one year, taking into consideration the
huge competition in the street of Badaro due to the big number of bars (BODO, attic bar, Villa
badaro, Wall street, Dany’s, Bloom lennon…).
this percentage was expected and we are still seeking for better results through social media
platforms in the future.
future?
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Yes because, in my perspective, social media is a way to communicate with clients and interact with
them. On the other way, traditional media gather and disseminates news, and continue to do so.
Social media platforms are an innovative way to show clients our products: first we started through
Facebook, Zomato and recently via WhatsApp to send broadcasts/ messages for the events.
Traditional media can be easily replaced with social media platforms because users can still follow
traditional media through their official pages on social media.
Being always active on social media help us a lot to stay in connection with our customers. the idea
of posting blogs/images reminds our customers of our business and keeps them always visiting us to
enjoy our unique experience.
Turning negative situations into something positive. knowing the feedback of our customer helps us
to identify what was the experience of each one of them and of course contacting every person that
has a negative feedback in order to fix the issue and invite him back to our bar.
Yes in fact, I find social media enough under one condition, to stay available 24/7 and always
responding as soon as possible to all the questions asked by our clients.
11. Do you see social media as a must for SMEs to maintain their presence?
In oder for SMEs to maintain their presence, they should always keep in touch and communicate
with their clients, and the most effective and efficient way nowadays is social media. thats why
social media is a must for SMEs so that they can grow bigger and bigger to become large
enterprises (more than one location) and reach their targets and goals.
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- The second SME chosen was “Primal 7” a team of 3 entrepreneurs, doctors in physical therapy
and Chinese medicine running three branches across Lebanon: Downtown, Hazmieh and Hamra.
“Primal 7” helps patients deal with all kind of physical pain and discomfort, providing a better
understanding of the origin of the dysfunction, present effective and efficient cures trough
physical therapy and ways of prevention in the future. Dr. Jad Naissi, the managing director of
“Primal 7” medical company is the one being interviewed.
Social media helps in reflecting the strong points that the company has, reaching a maximum
amount of patients in a very short time. it also helps the patient to interact digitally with us:
• By asking questions about his case.
• Referring each other by tagging the name on a specific post (Example: Low back pain post)
• Creating a medical awareness about the importance of our service to help the patient reaching a
better quality of life.
Social media is one of the easiest way, low cost budget, no entry barriers to grow an SME. A lot of
the patients questions are found in the social media campaign that Primal 7 does on weakly bases. It
helps us build a better image to our selves, for the people to understand what we are truly capable of
doing using science and EVP (evidence based practice).
On Facebook for example, the audience have the right to write down a report on the company’s
Facebook page which is non-removable. This allows us to see the only side of the business we
couldn’t see, which is how the audience evaluates our services inside the company. This pushes
every individual working in the company to do more efforts in terms of education, management and
financially as well.
Our services concerns all ages, the most popular ones are between:
• 15 to 25 years old, the most athletic age who always needs more treatment to avoid injuries,
upgrade their performance and optimise their quality of lifestyle.
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• 40 to 60 years old because they always need maintenance and the ones who have more risk to
get injured.
• 65 and above, because 70% of them goes under the knife and needs rehabilitation after
surgeries.
Whenever people interact with our content we will get more likes and shares. More people will see
us and will get interested in our services as we have more than fifteen services explained and posted
on Instagram and Facebook without forgetting to mention the live streaming with the hashtags
which gets at least double the audience per second. Every company becomes a brand when it’s
posted online properly.
A lot of people underestimates the power of social media, I personally, was one of them until I
started my own company and lived the experience fully. I now receive around 35% of my patients
trough social media according to a financial study done by our financial consultant.
To begin with Instagram, we reach up to 900 profile visits every 7 days. The “Hashtags” helps us
target the people we want in a better way.
On Facebook, we are reaching around 1600 viewers for every video post. Knowing that Facebook is
the most used social media platform in the world and in the Middle East especially, it makes us
connect with a huge number of people starting by one simple question.
WhatsApp application is very common in Lebanon because it’s easy to use and it’s for free.
Through WhatsApp we send usually broadcasts to our customers to inform them with all the
upcoming events and teasers.
Our high quality content gave us more positive reviews that we use to upgrade our performance
then negative use which helped us improve our quality of service. which are, by the way, two main
criteria in every SME’s sales plan. We get at least 5 written reviews almost every day. this is the
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deepest way to reach social media users and stimulate them enough to send written reviews, making
them an aded value when it comes to customer services.
As an SME, you can see the difference in the turnover without doing a financial report simply
because our minimum goal is to cover our expanses and after using social media, our profits
doubled while our expenses increased by 20%, only because it was the cost of sponsoring the page/
posts on any form of social media, which gives us 80% net profit.
future?
There is more than two billion people users of social media in the world, it’s already taking a
traditional marketing way. You have two out of six billion people on earth already using it on daily
bases which eventually gets into their lifestyle.
There are a lot of factors :

• the creativity of the posts we upload and the content that interest the audience, explaining the
pathologies always makes it easy for the patient to interact with us and gain our trust.
• One of the main advantages in primal7 is that we combine different approaches all exposed on
social media which gives the client a better push to call us and contact us rather then contacting a
unidiscipline company.
• We do lot of free gym membership and we give some free treatments to the patients who shares
and likes our post the most, its the best way to do good marketing when you give out something
for free, specially when you give something that the patient can use for the benefit of his health.
10. Knowing that most of the firms available on the market today use social media due to its
low cost and its efficiency, do you find it enough to keep up with the competition?
Social media is a major boost to keep any SME in the market and boosts its productivity.
but its shouldn’t be the only focus of the company, because you never know when this phenomenon
will end or if it will be replaceable with something else in the future.
a good SME should always find the balance between the marketing costs and its effects.
45
you can invest in social media but you can’t be carried away with it.
you use it as a tool to boost your work but its never the only tool you use.
Right now i find it very essential and booming, if the people are spending at least 1h a day surfing
the web, you need to make sure that your SME keeps on popping for advertising and awareness,
giving health tips and how to live a better life.
In the medical world, you need to build a circle of trust between the patient and the physician.
this trust circle cannot be build fully on social media but it will be an access for the patient to visit
you and gets to know what the company is really about.
because in social media, there are a lot of fake posts and wrong informations, and the patient is
aware of this now, you need to stay consistent in posting and know what to post, choose different
angles when it comes to targeting the patient.
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- The third SME interviewed was “Style chic” an online shop, selling second hand luxuries brands
like: Louis Vuitton, Channel, Dior, Gucci, Burberry… the owner of the shop Mrs. Soha Abou
Abdallah, is the person answering the questionnaire.
While using social media in our business we look for products and services similar to ours in
addition to competitor's online social media exposure, because being updated with all our
competitors activities can help us to stay on the same vibe and never missing an opportunity to
collect more audience.
As an online shop, the only way to communicate and let the customer see our products is social
media. keeping in mind that this way can be easily reached with minimum cost. Nowadays all the
young generation and even older ones are using social media, so mainly, we have been using social
media due to its huge number of users.
Based on the products and services we are providing, our targeted audiences are women interested
in fashion in Lebanon and all over the Gulf region which we will be adding some extra charges as
shipping fees.
we are giving an opportunity to all women who loves luxuries brands to have access to them with
an affordable price.
Since social media is the only way to expose our products to all our customers, then this is the only
way to increase our sales and brand awareness. In addition, social media helps us to give all the
details to our clients knowing that its a second hand product so we have to show all the product’s
specifications (size, color, shape…). In our case, being transparent with our clients is something
very important because once a client wasn’t satisfied about the product, he will never come back
knowing that the minimum price available at our store is minimum 100$ which isn’t a small amount
of money.
• Instagram: having around 4000 followers on this social media platform that we use the most and
having more then 1500 likes as a minimum on each photo that we post. Through this platform we
are gaining more and more potential clients and this is helping us a lot.
47
• Facebook: our second platform which contains around 1000 followers, is in a way or another
under-developing, and we are still working on it in order to obtain a bigger market share through
Facebook. for now, we are using Facebook to get reviews and ratings for our services (delivery
time, product as expected, quality/price).
Knowing that we are not willing to open a real physical shop, our social media platforms are the
only way to sell our products and we will always be working to improve our social media pages.
Our strategy is to get new clients with different age using innovation and better quality products in
order to increase awareness and market share.
Yes, since this is the only way to communicate with our clients because we started selling our
products using the “word of mouth”. After many years in this sector, we got a bigger data that
helped us a lot while opening the social media platforms because we are targeting the proper
audiences in a very efficient way. And of course, our customers doubled after opening our online
shop because we are social media based brand and all our focus is based on improving our
platforms.
future?
Yes indeed, based on official figures provided by official establishments, the spending budgets on
the digital marketing is increasing like a rocket while on the other hand the marketing budgets for
traditional marketing ways is falling down.
Thats why, I do think that social media is the ideal way now to reach a bigger market share and new
audience.
In order to obtain a competitive advantage, having someone responsible of Customer service who is
having higher response rate to visitors requests.
In addition to the know how of using the Advertising platforms and when to use it on both
Instagram and Facebook. (example: advertisings on Instagram)
The online tools used whenever we need to promote online is always changing so one of the edges
that we have is keeping ourselves updated with all the upcoming ideas that can boost our social
48
media pages when it comes to changes on platforms we are already using and new ones as well. (for
example: creating an application that gathers all the online shops concentrating on shoes, bags and
accessories).
Yes off course since nowadays everybody is on social media and companies can reach their
audiences efficiently with a minimum cost wide online exposure. In addition, social media is very
easy to access, open to everybody all over the world which makes businesses grow faster and reach
the maximum number of customers.
49

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Memoire M2 - Pierre Doumit

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Saint Joseph University.

Faculté de Gestion et de Management.

Case Studies on the adoption of Social Media by Lebanese SMEs.

Under the direction of Dr. Karine Aoun Barakat.

1.1. Introduction to social media………………………………………………………….7.

1.1.1. The importance of social media……………………………………………7.

1.1.2. Social media strategies……………………………………………………..8.

1.1.3. Online communities………………………………………………………..9.

1.1.4. Buyer persona…………………………………..………………………….10.

1.1.5. Characteristics of social media…………………………………………….11.

1.2. Social media platforms……………………………………………………………….12.

1.2.1. Sustainability of your social media platform………………………………12.

1.2.2. Blogging platforms…………………………………………………………13.

1.2.2.1. Business-to-Consumer platforms………………………………..13.

1.2.2.2. Business-to-Business platforms…………………………………14.

1.3. Social media optimisation…………………………………………………………….15.

2. Social media adoption in SMEs……………………………………………………………..…17.

2.1. Defining digital presence…………………………………………………………….17.

2.2. The rise of social media-based brand…………………………………………………17.

2.3. Social media presence………………………………………………………………..18.

2.4. Owned, earned and paid content……………………………………………………..19.

2.5. Building a successful user experience………………………………………………..20.

2.6. Digital and social media marketing…………………………………………………..21.

2.6.1. Understanding digital and Social media marketing……………………..…22.

2.6.2. Adoption of social media marketing within SMEs……………………..…22.

2.6.3. Factors for adopting social media marketing in SME’s……………………23.

2.6.4. Success and failure in digital marketing …………………………………..25.

2.8. Reasons why every SME should adopt social media…………………………………27.

1.1. Introduction to social media:

1.1.1. The Importance of social media:

1.1.2. Social media strategies:

• Main strategies for social media use in the organisation:

1.1.3. Online communities:

1.1.4. Buyer persona.

Key aspects of the buyer persona:

• What: description of the buyer persona’s goals (primary and secondary).

1.1.5. Characteristics of social media.

Interactivity, as a combination of active intelligence, rich content and collaborative communications

1.2. Social media platforms.

1.2.1. Sustainability of your social media platform.

• Blogger: it is a google-owned platform set up for blogging. blogger.com is a freely hosted

1.2.2.1. Business-to-Consumer platforms.

B-to-C or business to consumer is a business model that is based on a settlement between a

1.2.2.2. Business-to-Business platforms.

A Business to Business company is basically a business relationship between a wholesaler and a

1.3. Social media optimisation:

2.1. Defining digital presence.

2.2. The rise of social media-based brand.

2.3. social media presence.

2.4. Owned, earned and paid content.

2.5. Building a successful user experience.

2.6. Digital and social media marketing in SMEs.

2.6.1. Understanding digital and social media marketing.

2.6.2. Adoption of social media marketing within SMEs.

Brand Building Interactivity Buzz Building Consumer Insights

Source: Elmo copy, advertising copywriter and blogging expert. (www.Elmocopy.com)

2.6.4. Success and failure in digital marketing.

2. 82% don’t reference their social media profiles.

3. 72% don’t have any calls to action on their interior pages.

5. 68% don’t include e-mails addresses on their home pages.

6. 38% of websites with an e-mail address bury it on the home page.

7. 27% don’t include a phone number on their home page.

2.7. Actions that makes people follow brands on social media.