Adoption of social networks marketing by SMEs: exploring the role of social influences and experience in technology acceptance

As social media increasingly penetrate the business world, it is important to understand the underlying reasons for companies to adopt social networks marketing (SNM). This study extends the technology acceptance model (TAM) to explore the role of social influences in the context of SNM technology adoption by small and medium companies, and considers how the temporal aspect of new technology adoption affects this relationship. Our findings show that adoption of SNM is strongly influenced by social influences from experts, competitors, and customers. These social influences affect intention to adopt this new technology both directly, and by affecting the perceptions of the technology usefulness. For SMEs already using SNM, social influence is the only strong determinant of the intention to continue employing this marketing technology, with the amount of experience with SNM strengthening this relationship.