Social Media Use as an Enabler of Marketing Evolution in Knowledge-Intensive SMEs

Abstract

This chapter identifies the operating and dynamic capabilities interactions that are supported by social media use in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), specifically knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). The focus on social media market intelligence accumulation and assimilation as an operating capability which enables dynamic marketing capability development in the SME marketing context, complements the prevalent focus in the literature on SME adoption and use of social media, as well as literature on how dynamic capabilities alter operating capability. The chapter presents a case study of a KIBS SME operating in South East England. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews with key actors and social media data, and thematically analysed. The findings suggest that the company develops absorptive capacity at the operating level by absorbing intelligence through social media use, and this learning is captured and transformed at the marketing planning level as a dynamic capability, reconfiguring future marketing operational capabilities.