From strategic orientation to social media orientation: improving SMEs’ performance on social media

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a framework of small and medium
enterprises’ (SMEs) strategic orientation (SO) and its impact on social media performance. Moreover, it
introduces a new concept, social media orientation (SMO) (composed of sales and business
development (SBD) and visibility) to add in the model. A quantitative approach was used and, based on a study of
257 SMEs, analyses were performed. A smartPLS analysis was judged appropriate regarding the
sample size. Results show that entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and customer orientation have a
positive influence on SBD which in turn has a positive influence on social media performance. Visibility
is positively influenced by EO and has an indirect effect on social media performance. Social media
performance is therefore directly influenced by SBD and indirectly by visibility. The authors complete previous research that called for the
introduction of different SO on a same study and go further as the author highlight the role of EO on
visibility (and not only on business or performance). A second contribution lies in the conceptualization
of SMO (defined here with SBD and visibility) and third in the measurement of social media
performance through growth and attention.