3.3. El Entrenamiento Táctico.
3.3.2. El juego táctico “entre líneas”; interrelación con el sistema 3:3.
The companies were asked an open-ended question about why they decided to embrace social
media. A total of 61 companies answered the question. The full responses are presented in
appendix 6. The answers were grouped based on their similarities. Figure 8 presents a summary
of the main themes related to the responses about the reasons why their companies adopted
social media.
Hours spent on social media per week
67.2% of companies spend about 1 to 20 hours a week on social media whereas 29.5% spend around 21 to 40 hours a week. 1.6% of companies stated they do not dedicate time to social media
whereas 1.6% reported they spend more than 40 hours weekly on social media.
Hours spent Frequency Percent
0 hour 1 1.6
1 to 20 hours 41 67.2
21 to 40 hours 18 29.5 More than 40 hours 1 1.6
Total 61 100.0
Table 30 Details of SMEs survey demographics
0 hour 2% 1 to 20 hours 67% 21 to 40 hours 29% More than 40 hour 2% 22 14 13 9 9 8 7 5 5 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2
Overall, 22 companies stated that they adopted social media to market products whereas 14
companies said they adopted social media to reach consumers. 13 companies embraced social
media to communicate with clients and suppliers, while nine companies utilized social media
to advertise products and services. Also, nine companies said they use social media to increase
their sales while eight companies stated they use social media to raise brand awareness. Seven
companies said they use social media to present their products while five companies reported
they adopted social media to increase the exposure to the company and five companies
mentioned the easiness of marketing on social media. Three companies stated using social
media for customer support, three companies use it for how quick it is in marketing, and 3
companies said they use social media because it is cost effective. Two companies decided to
use social media to create leads, two companies use it to form relationships with clients and
two companies mentioned adopting social media to expand and spread. Two companies stated
getting a feedback as the reason for adopting social media and finally tow companies said they
use social media to attract potential customers. Figure 9 presents other reasons cited by the
respondents for why they adopted social media.
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Keeping up with marketing trends Social media is effective marketing method For search engine optimisation To compete with companies/ For targeting audience To increase the number of clients To get an insight about the success of the company Users search for products online For recruitment
These reasons include keeping up with marketing trends, effectiveness of social media, search
engine optimisation, competition with other companies, audience targeting, increasing number
of clients and gaining insight about the clients` sentiments about products. Another company
mentioned using social media because they believe customers search for products online. Also,
another company reported that they adopted social media to recruit staff. Using Nvivo, the
open-ended responses were analysed, and word frequency was identified as presented in figure
10. It is noticeable that "Marketing" is the most frequent used word in the responses which
reflects the perceived usefulness of social media in marketing by these companies. “Reach" is
the second most frequent word used in the responses as most of the companies said they adopted
social media to reach the targeted consumers. Similarly, "Communicate" was one of the
frequently mentioned words as many of them stated that they adopted social media to
communicate with the customers. Also, "Awareness" is another word frequently used by the
respondents as many of them stated adopting social media to create brand awareness for their
companies. "Clients", "products", "sales" “exposure” and "to present" are also words that often
used in the responses of companies.
5.2.1.3. Social media objectives from companies aligned with social media objectives from the literature
The main themes of the responses cited by the Saudi SMEs about the reason why they adopted
social media in the open-ended question were aligned to the social media objectives identified
from the literature. This will help shed light on the Saudi SMEs reasons for using social media
and how similar/different these reasons are compared to other SMEs internationally. Table 31
presents both sources of objectives aligned.
Social media objectives cited by Saudi small & medium companies
Count Social media objectives from the literature
• To reach consumers 14 To reach target consumers
• To attract clients 2
• To increase number of clients 1
• Users search for companies online 1
• For targeting audience 1
Total 19
• For marketing 22 Perceived usefulness of social media
• To advertise products 9
• Social media is effective marketing method 1
Total 32
• Brand awareness 8 To create brand awareness
• Present products 7
• For exposure 5
• To expand/spread 1
Total 21
• To communicate 13 To engage with consumers
• To form relationships 2
Total 15
• To increase sales 9 To generate leads
• To generate leads 2
Total 11
• Get insight about the success of the company 1 To get market insight
• To get feedback 2
Total 3
• Easy to use 5 Perceived ease of use
• Customer support 3 To facilitate customer support
• Cost effectiveness 3 Resources
• To compete with companies 1 Competition
• Keeping up with marketing trends 1
• SEO 1 Exposure to the website
• For recruitment 1 For recruitment
We can see in table 26 that the majority of Saudi SMEs that participated in this study stated
that the reason why they use social media is for marketing. A significant number of companies
adopted social media to reach their target customers and to create brand awareness for their
companies. Also, another common reason for Saudi SMEs is to engage directly with
consumers, to increase sales (generate leads). Customer support is also another common reason
for these SMEs. Half companies (32 SMEs) adopted social media because they believe it is a
useful marketing tool. It is noticeable that from the responses so many participants gave the
adjectives fast, quick, easy when describing their reasons, this can tell us that SMEs consider
social media as an easy, fast, direct and cost-effective way to achieve whatever goal they stated.