Drivers of Social Media Adoption among SMEs in Sanaa and Aden Governorates of Yemen

Abstract

Moving towards digitalisation in business relies on identifying specific purpose, strategy and plans. With continuous advancement in technology, SMEs are induced to adopt such technological advancements to attain and sustain competitive edge over their competitors. Using social media to promote their business goals (to the market) is a primary objective in addition to their activities, products and services offered by the enterprises. This study explores the extent of social media adoption among enterprises in 2 cities in Yemen (Sanaa & Aden); and the primary data (drawn from owners/managers) unveils that WhatsApp and Facebook are the most used social platforms for marketing; while the least used are YouTube and Snapchat. Further, it is also obvious that, where social media is mostly used to facilitate advertising (Mean = 2.54), which has reduced their advertising cost, (Mean = 2.17), at the same time, it has failed to change customer behavior (Mean = -0.66) and serve their recruitment needs (Mean = 0.42). A significant differences has also been observed in terms of their appraisal [when respondents are categorised according to the scope of operations, education level of owner/managers, and age of the enterprise]; and the study concludes that there is an earnest need to train and guide the entrepreneurs of SMEs to adopt social media for innovative purposes that could contribute/enhance the chances of growth and development of business in Yemen, which could help them in creating new business prospects.

Keywords: SMEs, Social Media, Drivers, Enterprises, Sanaa, Aden, Yemen

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