The role of Facebook influencing in brand perception in small to medium size enterprise

The purpose of the study is to examining the effect that Facebook has on the user of a small to medium size enterprise (SME). The problem the study is the lack of understanding that social media sites like Facebook have on the perception of the brand by the user. The three factors studied in this research which is integrated marketing communication, words-of-mouth and social media communities are used to explain the brand perception to SME products and its relationship. By using 4 informants located at Kota Kinabalu Sabah area, random sampling and purposive sampling techniques are used to gather necessary data for this research and analysed using Nvivo. The data collected suggests that the use of Facebook by a SME does help maintain and in some cases increases the perception of the brand in the positive. The analysis of the data shows this effect on brand perception is based on the drivers of (a) connectivity,(b) change of perception, (c) goodwill. The interviewee indicates the importance of Facebook has a marketing communication tool. This is because of the unique characteristic of Facebook where users can like and commenting, sharing both visual and verbally information. The results from the research suggest that Facebook use by SMEs is an important part of an integrated approach to marketing communications when considering the perception of the brand.