Competency model of social media marketing for smes using personal knowledge management and experiential learning

Abstract

With the demands of the digital transformation and the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, social media marketing is seen as an important strategy for SMEs to improve their competitiveness. However, it is hindered by insufficient human or financial resources of SMEs. It is found that the SMEs in Chiang Mai have poor performance in social media marketing. The root cause is that the social media workers in SMEs have low social media marketing competency and lack the strategies to carry out their work. To address the issue, the research developed a social media marketing competency model for SMEs. The competency model aims to improve the SMEs' social media marketing performance by identifying, assessing, and developing the social media marketing competency of workers. There are three components in the model including social media marketing strategy framework, competency levels and assessment criteria, and learning method. The case study of the research is Monsiri Mulberry, a small-sized enterprise in Chiang Mai. The research methodology to develop and validate the competency model is divided into three steps. The first step applies customer knowledge management. Knowledge about customer is the critical terms of SMEs' social media marketing extracted by text mining from customers' feedback. Knowledge from customer is the customer requirements of SMEs' social media marketing from the Kano model analysis. Using componential analysis of the SMEs' social media marketing strategies in conjunction with critical terms and customer requirements, it revealed knowledge for customer which is the strategy framework of social media marketing along, the competency levels based on Miller's Pyramid and a learning method for the social media marketing competency development of social media workers in SMEs developed by componential analysis of personal knowledge management and experiential learning. Finally, the model would be validated by an experimental practice in the case of the Monsiri Mulberry. The competency of social media workers in Monsiri Mulberry in social media marketing would be accessed by semi-structured interview and the analysis using descriptive statistics.The competency development program is implemented using TikTok and Facebook platforms. The output of the study based on the proposed model includes the three components. The social media marketing strategy framework of SMEs covers the actions, tactics, knowledge and resources that support the marketing activities for SMEs using social media as a channel. The five components (5Cs) of the strategy framework are "Context", "Channel', "Content", "Communication", and "Continuity". The competency levels adopted the 5Cs and are categorized into three levels (Level 1-Novice, Level 2- Progressive, Level 3-Mature) to define the competency required to complete the social media marketing of SMEs. According to Miller's Pyramid, the assessment criteria of competency levels are categorized by 1) human performance (cognition) and 2) business performance (behaviour). The learning method includes four components: "Knowledge Base", "Competency Reflection", "Experiential Practice", and "Social Network". After the model implementation in SME's Monsiri Mulberry, the TikTok marketing competency of social media workers increased from Level 0 to Level 1 and Facebook marketing competency increased from Level 1 to Level 2. The research novelty adopts customer knowledge management as a framework for identifying the strategy and competency of social media marketing and combines personal knowledge management and experiential learning into competency development. It offers valuable insight into social media marketing in SMEs and has made contributions with implications to both theory and practice. The proposed model effectively improves the competency of SMEs in social media marketing and is of great significance to their business performance.