The Future of Social Media Marketing: Selling from Home

Abstraksi

Social media is the truly medium for socialization, interaction, attracts other people to see, and visit links that contain information about products and others. It is become more influence in everyday life (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). It is natural that its existence is used as the easiest and cheapest (low cost) marketing media by the company. This is what ultimately attracts small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) to make social media a mainstay of promotional media supported by websites that can display a complete business profile (Dahnil, Marzuki, Langgat, & Fabeil, 2014). In fact, it is not uncommon for business people to only have social media but still exist in competition. This is, of course, interesting, in the midst of the incessant government encouraging people to entrepreneurship and encouraging the growth of SMEs, businesses start to get an important tool in developing their business by utilizing online trading services and social media as a free promotional tools (Kirtiş & Karahan, 2011). Even today, social media is not just a promotional medium, but it is also used as an interactive marketing tool, service, build communication with customers and prospective customers, and as a tool to sell and buy products online (Constantinides, 2014). Recently research examine more the use of social media for marketing by companies and SMEs (Tuten & Solomon, 2017). This research focuses on the use of social media by households, especially married women who choose to work from home. In urban areas this phenomenon is growing rapidly with the presence of internet and the massive social media used by people who are not only used to socialize but also sell products without having to have a special location such as shops that are far from their homes (Meske & Stieglitz, 2013). This fact is increasingly interesting, because some women entrepreneurs who choose to use social media to sale from home actually earn income that is not much different from their previous income when working in the office. In some cases, even the income they get much more than the monthly income they earn when working outside the home or in the office (Genç & Öksüz, 2015). This qualitative research examines that product marketing through social media is increasingly being used by women entrepreneurs in urban areas who choose to work at home. The study aims to identify the kinds of social media used by women entrepreneurs in marketing their business and to analyze the marketing potential running from the home by applying social media. Data of the study were gathered using in-depth interviews and participant observation. A descriptive analysis showed that some of social media (Facebook and Instagram) are effective for marketing the products from home due to provides easy tools to be understood by woman entrepreneurs, moreover selling from home possibly become the future trend particularly for women in urban areas to have income without leaving their families working outside the home.