Social Media Content Creation A Study of SMEs in M
Social Media Content Creation A Study of SMEs in M
Marha Abdol Ghapar, Azlina Shamsudin, Nazlin Emieza Ngah, Nur Dalila
Adenan
To Link this Article: http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v13-i4/16517 DOI:10.6007/IJARBSS/v13-i4/16517
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Abstract
In recent years, social media has taken the world by storm in the digital society. Initially, social
media was created to eliminate the barriers of time difference and physical distance between
individuals. Taking advantage of the situation, especially with the recent COVID-19 pandemic
where the physical world was suddenly halted and everything goes online, organisations
perceived an opening to exploit the benefits of social media for the advantage of their online
businesses. Unfortunately, many Malaysian SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) still
lack in awareness of the advantages to be gained from social media adoption and
engagement. Given the growing significance of social media in contemporary marketing
tactics, it is essential for SMEs to comprehend how to produce compelling content that
appeals to their target market. The study intends to investigate the kinds of material
Malaysian SMEs should produce for social media, the methods they employ to produce and
disseminate information, and the difficulties they encounter along the way. In-depth
interviews with SME owners and managers will be used to gather data through qualitative
study, and non-probability sampling which is snowball sampling will be used to gather
participants. Therefore, this concept paper seeks to comprehend what constitutes good
content for social media and how social media content creation impacts a firm’s overall
performance.
Keywords: Social Media, Content Creation, Online Business, SMEs, Performance
Introduction
When it comes to media broadcasts, the world is rapidly evolving. Before the rise of the
Internet, businesses could only advertise through paid media such as television, radio, and
newspapers, where they had to pay to print flyers, coupons, membership cards, and other
promotional materials. Advertisements on mainstream media are prohibitively expensive,
and other supporting media have failed to meet the needs of potential customers.
Increasingly fewer people watch television today. They prefer more personalised content on
social media and other streaming platforms, including YouTube, Netflix, TikTok, Instagram,
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and Facebook. These crowd sourced content platforms, or ‘Future Internet’, may entice
millions of people to watch, re-share, and comment on engaging content. Social media is a
widely used platform that connects the entire world with a single click. As a result,
businesses, particularly SMEs, must find ways to maximise the benefits gained from using
social media for their operations.
Some businesses were quick to recognise this trend, and they created viral content; the rest
is history. Nevertheless, many businesses, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs),
have yet to take advantage of this new medium. According to Kementerian Pembangunan
Usahawan (2019) in the ‘Dasar Keusahawanan Negara’, the biggest challenge that
governments across the globe face is to instil digitalisation among entrepreneurs, to shift
from a traditional economy to a new economy. This shift was supported by the Twelfth
Malaysia Plan 2021-2025, as the Eleventh Plan only emphasised efforts in strengthening
technology adoption. The digital economy still saw slow growth, which widened the digital
divide between the rich and the poor (Malaysia Government, 2021). Not only that, The
Twelfth Malaysia Plan 2021-2025 also mentioned that Malaysia was ranked 26th out of 63
countries in the Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Digital Competitiveness
Ranking 2020, where the report specifically mentioned it was considered low digitalization
within industries, due to lack of awareness among Malaysian SMEs (Malaysia Government,
2021).
With such considerable resistance to change being part of human nature, the Malaysian
government is making efforts from multiple angles to ensure that Malaysian entrepreneurs
thrive in today’s agile and dynamic environment. The most crucial point is free marketing
when businesses take the right path with the right moves, which is why our Malaysian
government takes social media marketing (SMM) very seriously. In their annual report, SME
Corporation Malaysia (2019) mentioned that the government allocated an RM10 million
budget to Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) to train micro-digital
entrepreneurs and technologists to take advantage of e-marketplaces and social media
platforms. Besides that, Malaysia’s Ministry of Rural Development through Jabatan Kemajuan
Masyarakat or KEMAS aims to create knowledgeable and skilled entrepreneurs with social
media accounts such as Facebook or Instagram through online marketing courses. A survey
done by SME Corporation Malaysia found that social media platforms commonly used among
SMEs in Malaysia are Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
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In addition to that, the Malaysia Digital SME Study 2018 conducted by SME Corp. Malaysia
and Huawei Technologies (M) Sdn Bhd proved that SMEs using social media and e-commerce
in their business operations saw productivity improvement of between 26% to 27% (National
Entrepreneur and SME Development Council, 2020). This result reaffirms the significance and
reason why SMEs should seize the opportunity of social media implementation and
utilisation.
The study strives to gain new insights, knowledge, and experience in a relatively new area
in today’s digital world: social media content creation. Consequently, this study also aims to
raise awareness among SME leaders so that they can seize the opportunity to utilise social
media phenomena to the fullest extent for the benefit of their businesses. The authors’ goal
with this study is to investigate what constitutes good social media content and how it
impacts business performance. The most important aspect of social media content creation
is that it is free marketing if businesses follow the proper path. In the future, it is hoped that
the overall performance of Malaysian SMEs will improve as a result of the discovery of the
elements that make for good content, the exposure of the obstacles faced by SMEs in creating
content for social media and understanding the relevance of creating contents for social
media.
Literature Reviews
In today’s online world, there are a multitude of social media platforms to choose from. When
it comes to social media, as the name implies, it was created to allow people to communicate
in the digital world. Social media has made it possible for people around the world to
communicate at any time and from any location. Social media is beneficial to businesses as
well as the general public. Despite the numerous benefits of social media adoption for
business, it is surprising that firms have yet to widely adopt it, particularly among Malaysian
SMEs.
Social Media
Social media is a digital environment that allows all users to mix personal and
professional information, allowing businesses to gain a new communication channel with
their customers (Gustavsson, 2017). Dollarhide (2021), on the other hand, defined social
media as a digital platform for exchanging ideas, thoughts, and information via virtual
networks and communities. In Malaysia, the most popular and trending social media
platforms are TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. According to Boyd & Ellison
(2007), social media was created initially to connect friends, but has since grown into a global
phenomenon since the creation of Facebook in 2008, as cited in Kraus et al. (2019). Moreover,
according to Mazza & Palermo (2018), Facebook is used as a communication medium by
billions of people worldwide, so businesses should leverage it for marketing and consumer
engagement.
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Content Creation
Many sources emphasise the importance of content creation, which is defined as
content on social media platforms. Despite this, few studies have been conducted to
determine the amount of time and resources required to create content (Kraus et al., 2019).
As predicted by Gates (1996) 25 years ago, there will be intense competition as well as a
significant number of failures in creating content in many categories, including sports,
directories, classified advertising, online communities, and the most important,
entertainment and gaming.
Businesses that keep up with current technology will always thrive faster than their
competitors. Creating professional content that addresses current trending issues has a
positive impact on brand visibility and business performance (Botha et al., 2011). SMEs can
benefit from a free marketing medium by participating in social media marketing, as SMEs
typically have fewer resources than larger corporations (Kraus et al., 2019). It is one of the
new branches of marketing in which businesses are willing to invest in creating good content
for social media in order to better engage with customers (Ferrari, 2016).
The content itself should be the primary focus of businesses in the Internet Age.
Previous research found that professional content creation has a significant impact on brand
exposure and visibility, resulting in improved business performance and sales (Rezun, 2018).
In his article ‘Content is King’, Gates (1996), co-founder of the software company Microsoft
Corporation, predicted that real money could be made with content on the Internet.
According to (Kubbernus, 2021), despite the fact that this famous adage was uttered 25 years
ago, content is still king. Today, content evolves in numerous formats, such as social media,
video and music streaming apps, podcasts, tweets, blogs, and podcasts, and augmented
reality (AR) is on the rise. There is a dearth of academic research on the relationship between
investing in social media content creation and its positive effects or significant benefits for
businesses.
Important Elements
From the study done by Yan & Musika (2018), they identified and evaluated several
aspects kept in check by SMEs in implementing social media usage for their business:
deciding which platforms to deploy, governance and responsibilities, value metrics,
accessibility, risk management, a growing number of followers, content creation and
update, incentives strategies, monitoring, comments utilising for future development,
message processing rules, customer feedback timelines, and report creating and sharing.
These are all important factors that SMEs must consider in order to effectively use social
media for business.
Obstacles Faced
Since the entire human population on the planet relies heavily on the Internet in
today’s world, there are other factors that could obstruct content delivery such as
bandwidth, Internet quotas, Internet pricing, the storage capacity of devices, and many
more. As a result, there is room for improvement, innovation, and collaboration among
telecommunications companies, media, and Internet stakeholders (Gonçalves, 2016). It is
critical to understand why firms are hesitant to use social media; perhaps these barriers
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should first be removed in order to encourage firms to use social media and maximise the
benefits of social media for their businesses.
Relevance
Today, society lives in a world that breathes trending and viral issues. Many firms
must now be agile in grasping the latest buzz or chitchat among the Internet citizens or
netizens in the digital world. As the situation is in the news industry, the press and stations
compete to be the first to post or report on the latest news (6 Key Factors That Influence
Your Social Media Engagement, 2017). The same goes for social media, content should be
created in relevance to trending and viral issues. By keeping in check of the latest hashtags
or famous current issues, a firm could gain free marketing as consumers will talk about the
brand, product, or service related to the firm, thus making them stand out above the rest.
The digital crowd will voluntarily share viral contents on their timeline, making the firm the
talk of the town. This is the factor or gap to be investigated in this concept paper, as there
are currently a limited number of scholars looking into this area.
Performance Trends
Yan & Musika (2018) discovered positive performance trends in interviews with their
samples. According to one SME who participated in the study, their advertising costs have
decreased while their revenue has increased since the implementation of social media.
Furthermore, their customer satisfaction has improved as a result of improved service
times, and finally, customer retention has improved as the number of online visitors has
increased. Another SME in the same study reported an increase in business performance
after using Instagram for social media. The application’s report enabled them to track
growth on a weekly, monthly, and annual basis. By analysing booking systems on their
social media, they were able to see a noticeable increase in the number of clients.
Interestingly, Ainin et al (2015) stated that there is a gap in studies that measure
Facebook usage and organizational performance. Their study found that Facebook usage
has a very strong positive impact on organizations’ performance. Not only that, there was
also a study done by Chatterjee & Kumar Kar (2020) that investigated the impact if social
media marketing on business, in terms of increased customer, increased employees
creativity, increased sales, increased enquiries, positive feedbacks, and better customer
relationship.
On another note, several studies cited by Yan & Musika (2018) also agreed that SMEs
can transform the use of social media tools into business growth. Wang et al (2016)
conducted a study that found that user-generated content could lead to company growth.
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Furthermore, Yan & Musika (2018) also agreed that social media enabled cheap and easy
communication between businesses and customers, thereby facilitating growth.
Conceptual Framework
Figure 1 depicts the conceptual framework for this study. There are three key independent
variables to be investigated representing social media content creation; important
elements and obstacles faced, which were derived from multiple past studies, while
relevance is the new variable introduced in this concept paper. Performance trends acts as
the dependent variable, as applied in the study by (Ainin et al., 2015).
Research Methodology
This study will adopt the qualitative approach because it involves primary data analysis and
interpretation derived from interviews and observations. This method is used to discover
meaningful patterns that can describe the significance of the social media phenomenon
and discover content creation advantages that are currently popular in today’s digital
world. Therefore, the best way to conduct this study is by adapting the phenomenology
studies that fall under the inquiry approach. According to Mckenzie (2012),
phenomenology studies aim to find common themes or elements and are done by
obtaining verbal descriptions through in-depth interviews of samples on perceptions of a
phenomenon, which in this case, is content creation for social media.
The research population consists of SME owners or managers from two major industries in
Malaysia: food and beverages (F&B) and fashion. As this is qualitative research, non -
probability sampling will be applied because social actors are not predictable like objects
and randomised events are irrelevant to social life, making probability sampling inefficient
and costly to conduct (Ladner, 2008). The snowball sampling method will be used for
sample selection. To stay within the boundaries and scope of the study, SMEs chosen must
meet the criteria and are limited to those who have implemented social media in their
business. The researcher intends to interview easily located and contactable SMEs and
then solicit their assistance in introducing their network of other SME acquaintances and
friends.
The study will be using phenomenology studies by conducting interviews and observations
because it intends to produce findings without using statistical analysis or other quantitative
methods. The researcher will produce a set of interview questions that are appropriate for
the study's objectives. Interviews were recorded in both video and audio formats to aid in
data analysis and extraction. Interviews will also be transcribed and categorised in order to
better understand the primary data and answer research questions and achieve objectives
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(Huotari et al., 2015). Besides that, SME owners will also be requested to provide data on
social media traffic and sales patterns to uncover performance trends when they executed
social media content creation.
Discussion
Present-day consumers are engrossed in their gadgets and digital devices. Consumers want a
new digital shopping experience that will entice them to actively survey, purchase, and post
reviews for products and services that they are interested in, in order to play games and
browsing the typical social media posts of their friends. In the wake of the recent Covid-19
pandemic that has ravaged the globe over the past two years, everything has abruptly shifted
online, necessitating businesses' use of social media to establish a digital presence. Even now,
entering the post-pandemic or endemic phase, social media is still such an important tool
business could use to communicate and market their products and services swiftly. Those
who fail to quickly adapt to the shifting environment will fall behind. It is essential to
comprehend the factors that constitute good social media content for businesses; the
important elements, the obstacles they face, and the relevance of it, and finally to see how it
all impacts business performance.
Conclusion
By introducing a new variable for the study, it is hoped that it will shed some light on other
shady factors, thus, allowing businesses to fully utilise social media to their advantage, and
increase their business performance as a whole.
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, we would like to thank Allah the Almighty for blessing and allowing us to
complete and submit this article on time. Next, this concept paper and the research
conducted would not have been possible without the exceptional cooperation of all authors,
each of whom played an important role in making this paper a success. The expertise,
responsibility, and generosity of all authors were instrumental in making this concept paper
a reality. A special thanks to our faculty members from Faculty of Business and Management,
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Cawangan Terengganu who are willing to be a part of this study.
Finally, we have high hopes that our study will be useful not only to academicians, but also to
organisations and all parties involved in the subject matter, directly or indirectly.
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