Factors influencing the adoption of social media in service sector small and medium enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

Social media has turned into an internet marvel in recent years. This fast technological evolution and intensity of competition oblige companies to constantly looking for different ways to set apart themselves and offer added values to their customers especially in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The increasing popularity of social media has encouraged SMEs to start to consider this means as a new approach to communicate with clients and increase their brand reputation. In spite of the potential benefit and the developing numbers of adopters, previous studies show that only a few SMEs are concerned about social media adoption. Therefore, this forms a necessity to understand more on the factor influence in the decision making of the adoption in SMEs. Lack of literature review also creates another concern that require a thorough research. So the study will discuss the relationship between factors of influencing the adoption of social media in SMEs service sector. The data collected for this study was done by using online survey strategy. This study used 384 as a sample size with a population of total 809 126 Malaysia’s SMEs in the service sector. From the result obtained, the three factors identified: ease of use, usefulness and trust have a significant relationship with adoption while usefulness is most contributed factor in the adoption of social media. This finding will be a valuable data in assisting new entrepreneurs in adopting appropriate social media for their business.