Social media marketing in Indonesian Social Enterprise: The effect of members’ level of participation on brand trust and brand commitment

Abstract

Social enterprises, as one of the way of doing business are on the rise and emerging from the innovations of decades of social initiatives. In simple way, social enterprises use the business platform to achieve social and/or environmental objectives whilst simultaneously seeking a financial return. In Indonesia, the number of social enterprise are rapidly growing in line with National Entrepreneurship Movement, Government Initiative to increase numbers of entrepreneur in Indonesia. This year, Indonesian Government allocate 100 billion Indonesian rupiahs to encourage and develop small medium enterprise. In 2016, there are approximately 132,7 million people in Indonesia who are using the internet actively. This makes Indonesia as the 6th largest internet user in the world. Most of them were using the internet to access Online shop (62%) or using the internet for business purpose (34,2%). Based on the data from Indonesian Ministry of Communication and Information there are 129,2 million people or about 97,4% people in Indonesia actively accessing social media. This fact related with the condition that many entrepreneurs nowadays using social media as their business platform, including many of social entrepreneurs in Indonesia. We do agree that internet has revolutionized communication, allowing individuals and organizations to overcome geographical and time constraints. Consequently, that allows consumers and companies to connect around the world at any time. Social media as a part of the revolutionized communication are defined as ―a second generation of Web development and design, that aims to facilitate communication, secures information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. With their increasing use recently, these sites are perceived as tools for creating online communities of users who share interests, activities, and objectives. Many companies view the use of online communities in social media as a profitable marketing tool from which they can derive several benefits. Through social media, consumers share experiences with and suggest ideas to others while developing new relationships within their communities. Previous research has shown the activity will impact brand trust and brand commitment that considered as important factors in enhancing relationships between business and its consumer. Therefore, this study intends to identify the benefits that participants in online communities seek and examine the relationships between members’ levels of participation, brand trust, and brand commitment by using Partial Least Square. Sample of this study consisted of member or follower in several social media from selected social enterprise in Indonesia. Findings of this study expected to provide significant insights for the researchers and marketers. Thus, the study contributes to the understanding of consumer behavior in social media and from the practical perspective, the study suggests some strategies to effectively design marketing strategies which can strengthen the relationships with current consumers and attract potential consumers.