DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN MARKETING: SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA PERFORMANCE THROUGH CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT

Abstract

Social media has become a significant component of organizations' digital marketing strategies, particularly for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Social Media Marketing (SMM), Social Media Engagement (SME), and Social Media Performance (SMP) using the Structural Equation Modeling - Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) approach. This study employs a causal research design to investigate the cause-and-effect relationship between variables, with a sample of fashion MSMEs in City and Regency Tangerang who have actively used social media in their company operations. The findings indicate that SMM has a positive and significant impact on SME and SMP, with SME serving as a mediating variable in increasing social media performance. SME has an R-squared (R²) score of 0.404, indicating that additional variables can improve consumer involvement. The study's findings contribute to the creation of digital marketing strategies for fashion MSMEs, particularly in terms of improving communication and customer interaction via social media. This study has limitations since the sample size is confined to fashion MSMEs in Tangerang City and Regency, thus the results may not be entirely generalizable to other industries or areas.