Dimensions of social media marketing capabilities and their contribution to business performance of firms in Thailand
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-07-2018-0204 |
| Pages | 441-461 |
| Published date | 20 December 2019 |
| Date | 20 December 2019 |
| Author | Penpattra Tarsakoo,Peerayuth Charoensukmongkol |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,International business |
Dimensions of social media marketing
capabilities and their contribution to
business performance of firms in Thailand
Penpattra Tarsakoo and Peerayuth Charoensukmongkol
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to explore thecontribution of social media marketing capability on business
performance of firms in Thailand. The conceptualization of social media marketing capability was
developedusing five aspects of the spanningcapabilities of Day’s strategic framework.
Design/methodology/approach –Questionnaire data were collected from business entrepreneurs in
Thailand who attendedseminar and training courses (N = 364). Partial least squares structuralequation
modelingwas used to analyze data.
Findings –Among five aspectsof social media marketing capability, socialmedia product development
capabilities and social media marketing implementation capability were positively and significantly
related to customer relationship performance and financial performance; social media marketing
communication capability had a significantly positive relationship only with customer relationship
performance, whereas social media planning capability was found to have a significantly positive
relationshiponly with financial performance. However,the analysis did not find the significantrelationship
betweensocial media pricing capability andthe two aspects of firm performance.
Research limitations/implications –First, the results were obtained using cross-sectional data
collection. Second, the data were collected using convenience sampling. Third, the performance
variablesused in the analysis are perceptual measures.Finally, the study was only conducted in Thailand
contextand did not lend itself to any general applicability.
Practical implications –This researchsuggests that it is important for Thai companiesthat rely on social
media to develop marketing capabilitiesand learn how to incorporate social media into their marketing
activities.
Originality/value –This study built a conceptual foundation of social media marketing capabilities
based on Days strategic framework which provided a complete and comprehensive view about social
media applicationsthat can be integrated into differentareas of marketing activities.
Keywords Small- and medium-sized enterprises, Social media, Firm performance, Marketing,
Marketing strategy, Capabilities, Resource-based view, e-Business, Survey method,
Strategic management
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Social media platforms provide new opportunities for businesses to improve their
competitive position through new, interactive ways, and this has made social media widely
adopted as a business tool in the twenty-first century (Chikandiwa et al.,2013). From a
marketing perspective, the role of social media has become crucial because it is changing
traditional ways of marketing which involve a one-way direction of information exchange (Park
and Oh, 2012). Social media marketing allows marketers to build brand awareness, to share
knowledge and information, to acquire and to retain customers and to initiate low cost
promotions as well as to engage with customers in interactive ways (Bolotaeva and Cata, 2011;
Penpattra Tarsakoo and
Peerayuth
Charoensukmongkol are
both based at International
College, National Institute
of Developmental
Administration, Bangkok,
Thailand.
Received 18 July 2018
Revised 12 December 2018
28 March 2019
18 October 2019
Accepted 30 October 2019
This research received financial
support from National Institute
of Developmental
Administration.
DOI 10.1108/JABS-07-2018-0204 VOL. 14 NO. 4 2020, pp. 441-461, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jPAGE 441
Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010). Furthermore, social media provides opportunitiesfor customers to
participate in the spreading of information through social media platforms (Ryan and Jones,
2009).
Although social media marketing provides new opportunities and benefits for firms,
research shows that many social media marketing initiatives implemented by small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) tend to be unsuccessful (Weber, 2009). Several studies have
examined the problems of SMEs in adopting social media marketing such as a lack of a
well-defined strategy, problems in dealing with technology, a lack of understanding of the
opportunities provided by social mediaand how social media could be used (Nakara et al.,
2012). Additionally, it is difficult for firms to control their image because consumers can
easily share their comments on a varietyof social media platforms, especially when they are
not satisfied with the products or services (Nakara et al.,2012). Therefore, it is important to
understand how to plan and use social media marketing strategy to enhance business
performance.
While there is a growing interest in research about social media marketing, to date, the
definition of social media marketing capability has not been comprehensively identified in
the literature. Although the conceptualization in the area of social media competency and
capability is available in contemporaneous literature, it seems to be in a narrow scope. Most
researches in this area tended to focus on the utilization of social media in a broad sense
without targeting the specific capabilities of firms to use social media in marketing (Braojos-
Gomez et al.,2015
;Culnan et al., 2010). For example, Braojos-Gomez et al. (2015) simply
defined a social media capability as “firms’proficiency in using and leveraging social media
for business activities.” The conceptualization of social media competence in the study of
Culnan et al. (2010) is determined by three formative first-order constructs, including
Facebook capability, Twitter capability and blog capability. Moreover, most of the existing
studies focused on consumer attitudes and behaviors toward social media marketing
(Bruhn et al.,2012;Godey et al., 2016;Kim and Ko, 2012;Stephen, 2016) without
considering the role of a firm’s social media marketing capability (Paniagua and Sapena,
2014;Smith et al.,2015).
This study has several purposes that aim to fill the research gaps mentioned earlier. First,
this study aims to build a conceptual foundation of social media marketing capability based
on Day (1994)’s strategic framework which is a comprehensive framework that has been
applied extensively in marketing research. Based on this framework, social media
marketing capability was developedby the spanning capabilities dimension which consists
of five facets of capabilities including:
1. social media pricing capability;
2. social media product development capability;
3. social media marketing communication capability;
4. social media marketing planning capability; and
5. social media marketing implementation capability.
Regarding the theoretical background, this research used the resource-based view of
firms (Barney, 1991) to support the role of social media marketing capability on firm
performance. This study attempted to explore whether firms in Thailand that exhibit a
high level of social media marketing capability in these five aspects tended to report
better performance in two aspects which are customer relationship performance and
financial performance. This research also related each dimension of social media
marketing capabilities to these two aspects of performance to investigate whether
different aspects of capabilities tend to explain two aspects of performance differently
or not.
PAGE 442 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jVOL. 14 NO. 4 2020
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