The Effectiveness of Marketing Communication Through Social Media on Small to Medium Size Enterprises (SMES) in Kuwait

This thesis is concerned with two major areas: marketing communication via social media and small to medium size enterprise marketing for Kuwaiti SMEs.
The researcher has been looking carefully at major social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others by opening accounts and being involved in daily interactions in them. They have been observing and witnessing the great potential of social media and that led to five questions concerning social media marketing and its usefulness to SMEs in Kuwait.
(i) Can SMEs market their products and services better through using social media rather than traditional media? (ii) Can SMEs reach their target customers through social media more easily than through traditional media? (iii) What are the benefits of marketing communication in social media? (iv) Can marketing communication be more effective by
using social media rather than using traditional media? (v) Can Kuwait benefit from SMEs’ empowerment to improve its economy by reducing dependency on oil production? It was from these questions, the topic of this thesis was born, which is investigating the effectiveness of marketing communication through social media for SMEs in Kuwait.
Primary data were collected through depth interviews from the owners/managers of Kuwaiti SMEs. Grounded theory as Strauss and Corbin was used.
Five models are developed and recommendations made to improve the effectiveness of social media marketing communications for SMEs in Kuwait.