Factors influencing consumers engagement toward social media in small businessCHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION1.1 IntroductionIn this modern societies, social media channels are getting popular and commonly used for the purpose to connect people together throughout the world via internet. With the presence of social media, people now can have interactive dialogue in any subject with anyone through the world and this allow them to share their experiences and valuable information (Mangold and Faulds, 2009).By looking in the business perspective, social media plays a vital role in marketing and act as a channel in creating relationship with consumers. Social media offered a large variety of opportunities for investors to promote their products, brand and services (Zarella, 2010). With the freedom of internet, now peoples are actively connecting through social networks, forum or blogs with each other to share their opinions about the products and services that they have used before or just heard about it (Weinberg, 2009).Meanwhile, social media provides the company an opportunity to engage and communicate with customer to create lasting relationship. Besides, social media help marketers to interact with individual consumers and create a long term relationships. Moreover social media create an interactive situation for company to communicate and engage closely with consumers. On top of that, consumers also involve in providing information about a company, share and educate their peers about the products, brands and services (Irem et al, 2012).

1.2 Research IssueSmall business is facing many challenges in promoting their business. For examples, some small business has limited financial resources and this restrict the small business to grow actively. Furthermore, small business also need to compete with other large business organizations (Shahizan et al., 2015). On top of that, Gilmore et al (2001) argue that small business does not have the ability to appoint a marketing manager to implement marketing activities to promote the business.On the other hand, there are many large business organizations have been using social media as their marketing tools in Malaysia (Shahizan et al., 2012). However, a recent study shows that the use of social media among small business is still low with a percentage of less than 20% in the small business sector (Shahizan et al., 2015).1.3 Research ProblemThe common challenges which small business faced in conducting marketing activities are lack of financial resources and competition with large business organizations. Therefore, in order to overcome the challenges faced by small business, the use of social media would allow small business to operate the marketing activities effectively. However, a study conducted by SMB group (2012) found that small business does not have a strategy to use social media as the marketing tools. Besides, Shahizan et al (2015) claimed that small businesses do not employ the right strategy when using social media. Moreover, Gilmore et al (2001) comment that small business is lack of expertise to use the social media as marketing tools. Without a proper strategy and expertise in using social media, this lead to marketers loss the opportunities to engage with consumers and allocate more expenses in promoting products and services through traditional marketing. Hence, small business need to determine the factors influencing consumers engagement toward social media.1.4 Research gapIn previous study, majorities research paper discussing social media implementation in large organization. However, the weakness of these study on the strategies do not necessarily work for small businesses. In addition, research on the use of social media in small business is still limited. Moreover, there are limited studies on the factors influencing consumers engagement toward social media. Meanwhile, research based on social media in consumers perspective have been done by different researches. However, previous studies are not applicable in Malaysia especially in small business industry. Moreover, as social media technology is enhancing day by day, therefore, previous studies does not give an accurate analysis on current trend.

1.5 ObjectiveThe objective of this research is To identify the factors that help a small business in using social media to engage with consumers. To identify the strategies that can be used to help a small business in using social media to engage with consumers.

1.6 Research QuestionThis study aims to answer the following question:1) What are the factors influencing engagement of consumers on social media?2) What are the strategies used to help a small business in using social media to engage with consumers?

1.7 Significance of studyThe purpose of this study is to identify the factors that help a small business in using social media to engage with consumers in Malaysia and to identify the strategies that used to help a small business in using social media to engage with consumers. As small businesses industry is important within most economies, therefore it is important to understand how small businesses take advantage of social media as a marketing technique to help in promoting businesses and to maintain relationship with customers.However many small businesses are struggle to use social media, they have no basic knowledge and understanding of the advantages on social media, therefore small businesses loss the opportunities to engage customers and lead to investors allocate more money in promoting businesses through traditional marketing. Social media affords small business variety of marketing opportunities with low monetary. Besides, social media provides businesses the opportunity to engage and interact with consumers to create lasting relationships.The result gained from this study is provide an understanding on how the small business uses social media to interact with consumers and build long term relationship to maintain business grow.

1.6 Scope of studyThe scope of this study include:1) This study only limited to small business companies in Malaysia2) Since there are variety of companies exist therefore this study will cover every industry.3) This study does not make comparison between the practices of a company which using social media successfully and a company which using it less successfully.4) Due to time constraints, companies that have not using social media successfully will not be included in this study.5) The company must be classified as a small business.

1.7 Organisation of studyThe outline of this study has five distinct chapters and an overview will be given on each chapter.In chapter 1, the background of social media is introduced. Then the gaps of knowledge will be discussed. The objective, research question and significant of study will be highlight. The working scope will be clarified according to the significant of study.In chapter 2, overview on the history of social media marketing is discussed. Previous study and research of social media, social media marketing and social media strategy will be highlighted as well.Methodology for this study is discussed in chapter 3 where the research methodology framework of this study are listed. Then the procedure of collecting data will be discussed briefly.Then chapter 4 will be analysis on the data through various data collection method on each social media platform.In the last chapter, summary and conclusion of this project are stated. The personal contribution will be highlighted. Possible future works and enhancement of the study will be discussed.

1.8 SummaryThis chapter provided a brief overview of the study and addressed the background, gaps of knowledge, objective, research question and significant of study will be highlight. The working scope were also discussed. This study addresses the gap and contributes to previous literature. This study opens by reviewing existing literature on small business marketing, integrated marketing communications, social media and social media marketing.