Sociological Analysis Of Promotion Of Small Business In The Digital Space

The main characteristics of the model of the promotion of the small business in the social networks

The development of information technology and society leads to the emergence of a large number of goods and services. Small business owners have to use new technologies, marketing tools and non-standard approaches to mass communications to increase their results of the commercial activity.

Recently, social networks have become a new platform for advertising activities, with the help of which you can achieve certain goals, for example, to attract a target audience, create a platform for customer feedback, etc.

However, at the moment, many companies feel a lack of theoretical material, analysis of practical experience in this field. Today, the social media market has thousands of sites, but all social networks can be classified by their purpose:

• Mass social networks - designed for any Internet user, where there is communication on any topic, for example: Vkontakte, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.;

• Theme social networks - have a certain directionality of communication among users with the same interests, professions, etc. (Professionali.ru, Linkedin, etc.);

• Photo hosting, video hosting, social networks with geo-positioning function-designed for communication through commenting photos, videos, location, etc. (YouTube, Instaqram, Foursquare, etc.).

However, all social networks share some common features that distinguish them from other means of network communication (blogs, forums, chats). These specific features are important for identifying opportunities to use social networks as a tool for marketing communications.

In the social media, any company has the opportunity to explore the target audience, make friends with them, answer any questions, consult, and, with the right approach, eliminate the negative.

This leads to an increase in the number of the loyal customers. Promotion itself is a process that targets advertising by creating specific communities to which target consumers subscribe.

Promotion in the social networks allows you to put forward a new product, goods or service to the market, express its key features, and increase brand awareness.

The main components of the development of the social media marketing communications include: community development strategy, brand platform (this is the total set of all social media communities in which a company or brand communicates with potential customers), development of unique content, attracting a target audience, communication management, targeted advertising.

The results from the focus group

Respondents were asked whether they use social networks for business. 8 out of 13 answered "Yes". In the future, this question will be included in the main questionnaire of the study. We asked the respondents which social networks they mostly spend their time on. Most of them said that they use mainly Facebook and Vkontakte in their work. In this case, the question was asked, do they answer their clients ' questions asked by them in comments or messages? The focus group participants noted that they always try to respond as much as possible. In addition, some participants noted that they are skeptical about running social media advertising campaigns for their business, believing that this marketing channel does not fit their industry. So, with the help of a focus group, we were able to find out how and what social networks are used by small business owners and establish their attitude to the promotion in the social networks.

Analysis and interpretation of the results of an empirical study of small business promotion in the digital space on the example of social networks

Among the 150 online respondents, 57 do not use social media for business, and 93 use social media for their organizations (Table 01 ).

The results of the survey show that among 150 respondents, 72 belong to the client type of business, 51 - to retail, etc. These data indicate that the use of social networks is the maximum in the service sector and the minimum in distribution (Table 02 ).

The results of the survey show that 58 respondents made initial investments in the amount of 0 to 5 thousand rubles, and 20 respondents invested from 50 thousand rubles (Table 03 , 04 ).

The survey results show that 64 respondents use social networks for branding and 10 respondents for generating leads (Table 05 ).

The survey results show that 45 out of 64 respondents do not use other media, and 48 out of 64 use other media that complement social networks, which shows that almost 50% of respondents use traditional media together with social media (Table 06 ).

The results of the survey show that about 52% of respondents did not use social networks as a platform for advertising campaigns (Table 07 ).

The results of the survey show that 41 respondents post updates every day, and about 33 respondents post them for 1-2 days, indicating that people regularly connect to social networks to learn more about the community audience, to respond to comments and messages (Table 08 ).

The survey results show that 36 respondents did not notice an increase in revenue, and 25 respondents noted that business revenue increased by 25%, indicating that it is not possible to say that social networks are guaranteed to lead to an increase in revenue or profits (Table 09 ).

The survey results show that 55 people found social media useful, and only 6 respondents denied it, indicating that the majority believe that social media benefits their business, although the actual reasons are difficult to assess (Table 10 ).

The above Table 11 shows that 36 respondents consider increasing sales as a measure of success in social media marketing. 34 respondents speak about likes and comments.

Social media has reached such a stage of development that marketers no longer ask whether it should be part of their marketing plan or not. Many companies simply start creating accounts and releasing content without a specific goal or plan, instead of exploring the best ways to engage in social media and / or reach out to an experienced person in the marketplace.

An important part of an effective marketing plan to promote small businesses in social networks is to resolve the following issues:

• The message of a brand recognized on the Internet;

• Positioning and detaching from competitors;

• Integrate social media into other marketing campaign (Yang, Huang, Li, Liu, & Hu, 2017).

The following ideas can help you achieve your desired success:

• Due to the fact that the share of mobile traffic is ahead of desktops, it is necessary to provide mobile layout of the company's website;

• Micro and small business owners need to understand their needs or seek help from expertise to better improve business results, to save time and help achieve online success - it all starts with a small budget;

• Micro and small businesses must provide some additional services, such as online shopping, booking, or electronic invoicing, and lead to e-Commerce;

• Presence on Facebook and other social networks, such as Vkontakte, Twitter, etc., is highly recommended for micro and small businesses to raise awareness of potential customers, create and consolidation personal relationships with current and potential customers (Sidyak, 2015);

• The effect will increase if other forms of Internet marketing are used in addition to social media marketing;

• The most important thing in social networks is that you are not alone here! Social media is not a monologue in which you tell the world about the rewards you have received, or about special offers for your products and services. This is an opportunity for you to make meaningful connections with people who have helped you and supported you in business (Syrkina, 2015);

• Planning your actions in social networks will allow you to publish regularly and get high results;

• Attention is not so easy to get on social networks, so be sure to add photos and videos to your social content. This will increase interest and is ideal for companies that can boast of products. If you work in the service industry, post a photo with words or a photo that supplementing your text. And don't forget about visually-oriented platforms like Instagram and Pinterest (Stokes, 2017);

• You don't need to be an experienced marketer to make your advertising campaign successful on social networks. If you don't have a team managing your social ads, or you can't spend a lot of time experimenting with free promotion methods, you may end up spending a lot of money on paid advertising. You use organic posts to determine which ads you should spend money on. The best part is that you can target specific users in many of the social platform's ad managers. For example, let's say your goal is traffic to your site, and you've identified the most effective entry. You can create an audience that is likely to also like this post. This may be a similar audience that is similar to your site visitors. Or maybe it's an audience that has shown interest in your competitors. It can also be an audience based on demographic data such as location, age, or mobile device type. You can then exclude traffic to your site to exclude people who are already familiar with your brand (Sharma, 2019);

• Be yourself. Think for a second about the brands you follow on social media ... What makes them special? What makes you follow them? There's probably something special about the content they post, or the way they post it. They have an identity, not just brand robots that distribute content;

• Social media is about spreading value, like any other type of content marketing. Make sure that you provide valuable content to your audience at least 3-4 times a week and change the type of content you publish. Entertainment: post things that your audience finds interesting or fun. These posts are designed to connect with your audience and keep them interested. Special offers: publish information about discounts and coupons that you make available only to your subscribers. Events and news: keep your subscribers up to date with what's happening with your business. Did they write an article about you? Write a post about it. Did you get a reward? Let your subscribers know! (Sernovitz, 2016);

• Consistency is key when it comes to the social media. The more often you post quality content, the more likely you are to continue to expand your audience and keep it interested;

• The best way to increase the effectiveness of your social media marketing is to track how well you are doing your job. Track the day, time, and type of message. By tracking, you can see that some messages work better at certain times of the day and better on some days than others. The type of message also matters, and you'll probably see that messages with images work better than videos, or vice versa. When you have this information, you can post more of what works best (Whitaker, Stevelink, & Fear, 2017);

• Every social networking site is a great place to share information about your business. But here's the secret - you're not the only one who talks about you. Other people, too. Take some time to track the reputation of your business, while studying various social sites. Look for what people say about you. If the feedback is positive, take the time to Express your gratitude for what people are saying and promise to continue working in the same spirit. If the feedback is negative, listen to constructive criticism and try to solve the client's problem (Pourkhania, Abdipoura, Bahera, & Moslehpoura, 2019).