**1. Introduction**

The abundance of social media application creates an ecosystem of social media [1] which business organizations can use to enhance their information system (IS) and strategic endeavors [2, 3]. The use of social media in business organizations is in the post adoption stage. For instance, Mahr and Lievens [4] highlighted that 80% of firms listed in Standard and Poor's 500 index used social media. Although large organizations embraced social media, Kiron et al. [5] suggested that both large and small organizations practice social media. In addition, Braojos-Gomez et al. [6] suggest that small firms tend to use and leverage social media for strategic objectives such as marketing because of their low portfolio of financial resources to compete more effectively in the market compared with large business organizations. Although social media can be leveraged for strategic reasons, Kietzmann et al. [7] suggested that executives were struggling to build strategies for engaging effectively with social media. For instance, Omotosho [8] suggests small business entrepreneurs are familiar with major social media platforms and their relevance to their business endeavors but lack of continuity with platforms for business purposes was a factor for converting

#### *Digital Service Platforms*

the platforms for their personal use. Likewise, Effing and Spil [9] finds that social media strategy within organizations is not yet well developed. The difficulty of developing a strategy is attributed to abundance of social media applications which exist in different forms such as blogs, content communities, or social networking sites (ibid). Kwayu et al. [3] found organizations used different social media platforms for different strategic activities, which explains why there is a co-existence of different social media platforms in organizations. Therefore, while social media platforms support different strategic practices, Hanna et al. [1] suggest that the social media ecosystem creates an understanding of the overall social media strategy. Social media ecosystem is an accumulation of social media applications which emerge as important e-commerce context for organization to engage [10].

Partly out of financial constraints, small businesses turn into social media strategies [6]. Small businesses understand that social media is crucial for the competitiveness of small businesses. The evidence that the practice of social media within organizations is far advanced than its recognition in the literature [11], further underscores the need for scholars to understand the practice of small businesses use of social media and how the social media ecosystem influences strategies of small business.

Considering the above, this paper explores how the social media ecosystem enacts strategy for small business. The paper draws from practice theory which focuses on how people interact with technology in their ongoing activities while enacting structures, which influence emergent and situated use of that technology [12]. Thus, the practice perspective offers us with an understanding of how technology is used and how the use of that technology affects the organization.

Motivated by the concerns above, this paper seeks to answer the following question: how does the social media ecosystem enact strategy for small business?

Accordingly, this research is an autoethnography research that adopts an interpretivist philosophy to gather empirical evidence from personal experience and self-reflection of owning and managing a small online business. In this respect, the paper makes the following contributions. First and foremost, it will help to understand how an ecosystem of social media produces, embeds and enacts strategic activities for a small business. Second, it will help to understand the role of context in organization and assist contextual inclusivity. Third, it will give insights on the digital divide that exists between developed and developing context and the role of social media at either bridging or expanding the divide. Lastly, the paper will be useful for small businesses that want to develop agility, which is required to successfully adopt and implement digital transformation.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. First, I discuss the literature on social media, followed by a discussion on practice theory. Then a methodology section follows. Thereafter is the presentation of the findings and a discussion on the implication to literature and practice. Finally, I conclude with limitations and avenues for future research.

## **2. Social media strategy**

Social media is now a mainstream practice within organizations [13]. It is a new form of information technology that allows interaction and interoperability of users [14]. Dabner [15] explains social media as an internet and mobile based application which integrates technology, telecommunication and social interaction to enable the creation and dissemination of words, videos, images and audio. Treem and Leonardi [16] suggest social media is distinct from previous forms of information technology (IT) in terms of affordances. For instance, it allows

#### *Social Media Ecosystem and Its Influence on Small Business Strategic Practices DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.95058*

simultaneous and instantaneous exchange of information between users which has enabled social media usage to soar within a relatively short period of time. For example, Piskorski [17] highlights that most of popular social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube which were made in mid-2000 are now having more than billion users. Thus, with the affordances that social media offers to organizations and the influence that it has; organization are generating a considerable interest in understanding how to implement and develop strategies around social media.

Kwayu et al. [14] argues that social media is a broad term which embodies various forms making it difficult to apprehend. There have been various efforts to classify social media with Kaplan and Haenlein [18] developing six categories of social media which are: blogs, social networking sites, content communities, virtual game worlds, virtual social worlds and collaborative communities. Another attempt to offer understanding on different forms of social media was of Kietzmann et al. [7] which developed seven functional building blocks of categorizing social media platforms. The functional blocks are: Identity, sharing, conversation, presence, relationships, groups and reputations. Although the categorization of social media helps to understand a platform and its effect in organization, it obscures the understanding of the combined effect of social media applications that exist within the organization consequently denying organizations' executives with means of developing the overall social media strategy within organization.

In efforts to understand how social media co-exist in organizations, Piskorski [17] argues that for social media to be successful they have to offer a single social solution. Once it offers more than one solution, it becomes less effective. Given this observation, social media platforms refrain from copying social solutions from other platforms, hence this is the reason why different platforms with non-overlapping social solutions can co-exist in an organization. Like Piskorski [17], Kwayu et al. [3] found different social media platforms engendered different strategic practices within an organization. Although different social media platforms serve different functions within an organization, understanding of social media as an ecosystem helps the organization to pursue overall social media strategy rather than being tactical [1, 10]. Piskorski [17] suggests that an overall strategy needs structural change and helps organization in the long run whereas tactics are limited to a function and they are short-lived. In practice many organizations tend to use a functional approach to strategy [19] which denies organizations with full potential towards a social media strategy. Therefore, this paper intends to help in understanding how the social media ecosystem shapes business strategy.

It is crucial to understand social media strategy in order to understand how the social media ecosystem shapes business strategy. Piskorski [17] defines social media strategy as the idea of using social media for value creation and competitive advantage. Though limited some studies have explored social media strategy. For example, Culnan et al. [20] proposed an outline for implementing social media strategy which includes three elements that are; mindful adoption of social media platforms, building community in social media platforms and creating absorptive capacity for sourcing value from the community in social media. Similarly, Piskorski [17] argues that successful implementation of social media strategy seeks to increase organization's profit by improving interactions between people and making them undertake sets of corporate function for free. In addition, Piskorski [17] builds his argument using Porter [21] generic business strategy which gives organizations two choices of either differentiation or cost leadership. With differentiation an organization will use social media to pursue customers and ensure that they pay more without increasing the cost, while with cost leadership an organization will use social media to reduce their cost without reducing the customers willingness

to pay. Another study that reviewed social media strategy is Effing and Spil [9], who developed a framework which comprises three stages and seven key elements of social media strategy. The first stage is initiation, which comprises targeting audience and channel choice. Most organizations focused on the first stage. Second stage is diffusion which has elements of goals, resources and policies. Whereas the third stage is maturity which involves elements of monitoring and content activities. While these studies provide significant understanding of social media strategy, their major weakness is that they focus on customers. The studies also ignore other issues such as impact of social media on processes, structure and strategy of business organization.
