How Digital Marketing Specialists Help Small Businesses Thrive

There are various ways to categorize small or medium sized enterprises. Previous researches show various definitions of SMEs, which differ from one country to another (Mpofu & Lorraine, 2011, Bouazza, 2015). Generally, the numbers of workers and employment, the amount of investment, total assets, and sales or income are used as criteria in determining the scale of enterprise (Yoopetch & Mingkwan, 2010). In 2014, SME Corp Malaysia had redefined the 

meaning of SMEs, where the definition is being divided into 2 categories into manufacturing and service sectors. SMEs in the manufacturing sector includes organizations with sales turnover not exceeding RM50 million or have full-time employees not exceeding 200 workers. In the meantime for SMEs in the services and other sectors, the organization is considered a 

operation (Shemi & Procter, 2013). SMEs especially in less developed countries and rural areas usually are faced with internet related issues, where the speed is slower as compared to other areas in the city and developed nations. The lack of internet coverage and slow internet speed will delay the adoption of ecommerce or any internet related activities by the SMEs (Aboushouk, M.et.al, 2013; Jagongo & Kinyua,2013). This unavailability of internet 

Access will make businesses shy away 

from adopting social media. In addition to that, some rural areas are also faced with lack of electricity supply issues and have to depend on solar or diesel generated energy. This is another huge challenge for them, since electricity is a must for all technological devices to work (Durkin &.McGowan, 2013; Shemi & Procter, 2013). Apart from that another external challenge that is usually faced by businesses is the customer preference. There are 

customers who prefer to do business the traditional way, where they can actually meet face to face with the service provider, feel and touch the products and services provided (Shemi & Procter, 2013 , He et al., 2015). Subsequently there are also customers whose expectations have increased accordingly after being exposed to contents available via social media. The 

information that customers obtained from the internet is totally different from the real thing. When this happens, customers get upset and most probably will post their grievance in social media. Consequently, this will lead to a bad reputation on the part of the organization and may impact on its future business. This issue arises when businesses do not have control on what 

Is being said about them in social media

In view of this, businesses are more challenged to fulfill customers’ expectations and to maintain the good name of the business (Barwise & Meehan, 2010). The nature of most customers who are very difficult to please will prevent businesses from adopting social media because they see either no need for it (Durkin & McGowan, 2013) or businesses want to avoid the complications that may arise from the adoption of social media. Additionally, some 

businesses find that there is no need to adopt social media, since their competitors are not using it (Michaelidou et. al.2011, Calli & Clark, 2015).SME when its sales turnover does not exceed RM20 million or have full-time employees not exceeding 75 workers (SME Corp, 2014). Although the hospitality industry is one of the largest industries in the world, most 

hospitality firms are categorized as small and medium firms. This could be due to the fact that most hospitality firms are managed by owner operators and their family members (Thomas, et.al. 2010; Shang, 2014). Malaysian small and medium budget hotel in Malaysia as a small hotel with 3 star rating, which also includes motels, back packers and homestay businesses. Apart from that, Set (2013) extended the definition to include services such as transportation, travel agency, tour operator and also other tourism related businesses. Therefore, for the 

Purpose of this article tourism will 

include all tourism Internal challenges refer to challenges faced by organizations, which come from within the organization itself. Usually this kind of challenges can be managed and controlled by the organizations. Manpower compatibility issues are one of the most common challenges faced by SMEs in the adoption of social media. This includes the problem of insufficient skilled personnel who have basic skills and knowledge of handling the internet, as 

well as social media (Calli and Clark, 2015). Most SME businesses are family operated, especially for businesses operated in the outskirts and villages. Thus, their knowledge in handling and using technology may be quite limited. Although social media may be simpler to handle as compared to blogs and websites, business operators still face challenges in terms of handling the communication via social media. Their lack of language proficiency has also 

become a barrier for them in creating content to be shared with their public audience (Zeng & Gerritsen, 2014; Abou-Shouk, M et.al, 2013). Due to this, they are not able to correspond and share information about their business to the general public, using universal language, English. Another challenge faced by businesses are related to financial issues (He et al,2014 ; Calli & Clark, 2015), where some SMEs find it complicated for them to invest in technology 

Conclusion

it means they have to incur additional costs in obtaining the technological related tools, ie. Computer and internet connection device. Businesses also find it taxing for them to maintain a monthly subscription of internet connection as it again involves additional expenses. Some businesses are reluctant to engage in additional spending of acquiring technology into their business because they see that social media networking is not important and not significant 

within their industry (Batikas et. al., 2013). Due to this, businesses refrain from acquiring social media thus, losing out on the advantages that social media may provide. In addition to that, businesses are also faced with issues pertaining to organizational challenges. It was found that some SMEs are experiencing slow rate of adoption among their staffs. This is 

where the staffs as well as management may have to take some time to get familiarized and decide to adopt social media in their business (Michaelidou et. at, 2015). Some staff may take longer to accept and learn the use of social media while some are totally not willing to leave their comfort zone and learn to do things differently. They refuse to change and do not show cooperation in the adoption process. Age is also another issue faced by these SMEs. The 

older generation takes a long time to learn and adopt new things as compared to the younger generation. Challenges such as this will make it difficult for businesses to make operations more competitive. Another related challenge may also come from the managers themselves, where managers or business owners do not believe in the adoption of social media to gain competitive advantage (Shemi & Procter, 2015). Once the top management do not support in

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