Abstract:
Social media marketing has become a Crucial component of
marketing strategies for
businesses of all sizes, especially for Micro and Small Scale Enterprises (MSSEs)
looking to reach a wider audience and improve customer engagement. This study
aims to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of social media marketing
among MSSEs in the Polonnaruwa district. The research focuses on nine independent
variables, such as perceived relative advantage, perceived complexity, perceived cost,
top management support, perceived availability of financial support, perceived
employee capability, perceived competitive pressure, perceived customer pressure,
and perceived vendor support, which are aril believed to have an impact on the
adoption of social media marketing. With a sample size of 150 for each, the study
uses a comparative research approach to gather data from the micro and small scale
enterprise sectors. Structured questionnaire was used as the method of data collection.
Stratified random sampling method was used to make the sampling frame and
quantitative research approach used for this study.
The findings indicate that there is good reliability for all variables. Apart from
Perceived cost and Perceived complexity, there is a high level of other variables in
Polonnaruwa district. The results also showed that there is positive relationship
perceived relative advantage, top management support, perceived availability of
financial support, perceived employee capability, perceived competitive pressure,
perceived customer pressures and perceived vendor support and adopting social media
marketing in micro and small scale enterprises. There is negative relationship with
perceived complexity, perceived cost and adopting social media marketing in micro
and small scale enterprises. Also, the findings show that perceived relative advantage
and top management support have a positive impact on social media marketing
adoption in both micro and small scale enterprises. Perceived competitive pressure
have positive impact on social media marketing adoption in micro scale enterprises
and perceived customer pressure have positive impact on social media marketing
adoption in small scale enterprises.
