The role of social media analytics in shaping strategies for rural-based construction small and medium enterprises

Abstract

Social media is increasingly a driving force in contemporary business settings, enabling businesses to connect with customers, track market evolution, and drive strategic decision-making through real-time data. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of our economy and contribute almost 34% of South Africa's national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and play a crucial role in creating jobs, reducing poverty and growing the local economy - particularly in rural areas where they are the primary driver of formal economic activity. In this field, construction SMEs participate in the development of rural infrastructure and jobs, but unlike SMEs in retail, agriculture, and other more well-known fields, rural construction SMEs are project-based and tendering-based, with little internet access and low digital literacy, so has been little explored in the literature and not yet done in construction SMEs. The decision to choose the construction SMEs sector was because, unlike retail and agricultural SMEs whose social media practices are well-known on the internet and well-established, construction SMEs tendering and not direct sales is the best way to secure business (and thus the strategic role of Social Media Analytics (SMA) is so different for construction SMEs and is not yet covered in the literature, and so has not been done much). Unlike those in retail and hospitality industries, and e-commerce that already have large use of social media analytics in practice, rural construction SMEs are not necessarily more dependent on SMA than they should be, and the lack of digital literacy and poor connection in the industry makes them an under-studied but still important sector, for learning how such tools can still exist in the face of limited technological and logistical options. The adoption and strategic relevance of SMA in rural-based SMEs remain mostly undefined in the literature, leading to a deficit that this study seeks to address by examining the role of SMA in shaping strategies for rural-based small and medium construction enterprises in Vhembe District, Limpopo Province, South Africa. This study seeks to investigate the influence of SMA during business strategy development for rural-based construction businesses in Vhembe District. The research specifically aims to ascertain the advantages of SMA for SMEs, examine its relevance in rural construction contexts, discover the processes and instruments that would enable effective application, and the role of SMA within strategic planning for gaining a competitive advantage. The researcher employed a quantitative research methodology to explore the research shortfall empirically. Therefore, the study utilised structured questionnaires to collect data from the participating businesses, which were analysed by using the IBM Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 30 to present statistically significant results relevant to SMA usage in shaping the rural-based construction of SME strategies. The findings reveal that SMA provides rural-based construction SMEs with significant strategic benefits: better customer engagement, competitive intelligence, stronger brand reputation management, better marketing, and project management decisions. A further finding is that SMA is a key element in facilitating rural-based construction SMEs in moving away from assumption-based approaches towards data-driven decision-making. This result enhances competitiveness, sustainability and even long-term business development. This study recommends developing and implementing targeted digital empowerment initiatives to assist rural-based construction SMEs in deploying SMA. These initiatives should focus on digital literacy programmes and policy frameworks that will develop rural digital infrastructure in a time when access to social media platforms is largely predicated on network connectivity and data costs rather than the cost of the SMA tools themselves. Network service providers should be encouraged, through policy or incentive, to offer cheaper data and connectivity rates in underserved rural areas, because this is the primary barrier to SMA adoption rather than the availability of the tools themselves. Further research could expand this research to other rural areas and sectors to gain a comprehensive understanding of the strategic value of SMAs for businesses outside urban environments.