Social Media Marketing in Trinidad and Tobago: The SME Context

Literature Review

A major advantage of integrating social media into a marketing strategy is that it allows a higher degree of customer engagement. In her study, (Garcia, 2011) noted that engagement has a vital role in the success of social media marketing and further explained that social media allows for the placement of content via the Internet which then produces engagement from within similar groups which then extends further into the overall social networking system because of the “two-way street'” interaction process. In addition, social media allows for customers to generate product and service reviews and make recommendations on products or services which functions as a feedback mechanism. This concept is known as the Social Media Integration Model and demonstrates the organic nature of social media.

In addition (Garcia, 2011) further emphasizes that once content is fed into the social media ‘eco-system’, then it will begin to grow organically on its own and then flows without deliberate influence. This, is made possible by the communication which takes place between consumers on the social media platform.

These views are further supported by (Fischer & Reuber, 2011) who explains that social media provides the opportunity for social interactions between consumers and firms and can further allow companies to create a relationship with their customers. Furthermore, social media marketing focuses more on creativity, community, and relationship building to achieve traditional goals utilizing non-traditional methods at a much lower cost to achieve marketing objectives (Toh & Shandre, 2016)