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*

*

SUMMARY

commercial sector of Guayaquil favors business

development and internal and external communication.

Key words: Qualitative, descriptive, business

RESUMEN

La presente investigación tiene como objetivo analizar la

incidencia de las redes sociales como medio de

comunicación en las microempresas del sector comercial

Palabras clave: Cualitativa, descriptiva, empresa

* Ph.D. Universidad de Guayaquil, sofia.lovatot@ug.edu.ed, Guayaquil, Ecuador,

ORCID: 0000-0001-5831-8554

* Master, Universidad de Guayaquil, veronicacorenelp@ug.edu.ed, Guayaquil,

Ecuador, ORCID: 0000-0001-9771-367X

unknown users. According to Landeta, Salamea and Montecé (2019) the origin of social

networks dates back to 1995 when Randdy Conrads created a website called

www.classmates.com, which sought to connect alumni of schools, colleges and

universities, giving value to the number of connections and friends in common that users

had, it became attractive to connect in this type of websites.

There are currently around 482 million social network users worldwide. According to

Tello and Pineda (2017) the countries that have achieved the highest growth in the area

of e-commerce are China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Vietnam,

India, among others. In Latin America, the Internet penetration rate is 60% in the

countries of the region. Brazil and Mexico are among the countries with the highest

for the case of microenterprises according to the CAN (2017) in Resolution 1260 are

considered as such those companies that meet three requirements: a) have employed

personnel from 1 to 9 collaborators; b) the gross annual sales value must not exceed

USD 100,000; and, c) the amount of its assets must be up to USD 100,000.

This research aims to conduct a descriptive research and literature review on the impact

of social networks as a means of communication in microenterprises in the commercial

sector of the city of Guayaquil, since technological progress is inescapable and connects

everyone, microenterprises are not exempt from adapting to the use of ICT and social

networks as channels of internet and external communication.

are microenterprises, and of these 51.88% are engaged in commercial activity.

(Quisnancela & Jácome, 2021)

By May 2021 according to data from the Chamber of Commerce of Guayaquil (2021)

the number of users in the country has increased. Despite this, due to digital illiteracy

or lack of knowledge about the available resources, not all businesses know how to take

advantage of these tools.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) allow society to communicate and

innovate in social, labor, personal and commercial matters, to such an extent that it is

now difficult to conceive the idea of commerce without the use of these tools.

Traditional commerce has now been relegated mostly to the background due to social

needs and the use of digital media for advertising and marketing has become a priority

for business survival.

On the other hand, according to Castaño and Jurado (2016) from the growth of e-

valuable.

For Salazar, Paucar and Borja (2017) is the application of advertising and commercial

strategies through digital media, on the one hand it is nothing more than the translation

of traditional techniques applied in the virtual environment. However, in digital

marketing, the presence of tools becomes extensive due to the wide volatility and

innovation of techniques, tools, media, channels and methodologies.

Zamora (2019) quotes Boyd and Ellison (2007) who mention that social networks are

technological resources of great importance, both for consumers and individuals in

general and for organizations, because they establish a communication bridge between

them and generate new networks between companies and between users. On the other

growing due to the informative and commercial potential they have because of their

great impact and reach; users are increasingly exposed to large amounts of information

on a daily basis, making them a great marketing channel. For SMEs, this type of channel

are feedback channels for companies when generating new strategies, campaigns,

promotions and other decisions inherent to marketing, because you can get an overview

of the opinions, tastes, criticisms of customers and the perception they have about the

brand and products.

It is also applied for market research and feedback or level of satifaction of users or

customers to products offered, as well as perception and analysis of product

improvements, it is not only a communication channel, it is a comprehensive tool that

facilitates the processes of improvement and positioning, as it allows interaction between

users, potential and target consumers, the company and suppliers. (Zamora, 2019)

Therefore, nowadays the presence of a digital spokesperson has become one of the

massively and virally compared to other existing media. Its application in digital marketing

and commerce at present is not only related to publish infographics, advertising images,

it is more than that, now there are snacks contents that are short content with great

visual impact such as instagram reels, tik toks or YouTube Shorts that can be from image

collage to videos.

Affiliate Shops on Instagram is also in the pipeline, which will allow users to find products

to recommend from various brands and earn commissions for this activity. The use of

live videos for the launch of new products, brands or even for last-minute promotions

or sweepstakes has become a trend in digital marketing through social networks.

In the future, the development of the Facebook Metaverse will be a new experience for

products and services offered.

In the study conducted by McCann and Barlow (2015) determined that microenterprises

that do not apply social networks or other technological tools lost value and sales over

technology for the development of large advertising campaigns. However, social

networks are tools of easy access and application.

Balan and Rege (2017) indicate that more and more microenterprises are implementing

social networks for communication between employees, suppliers and customers, being

a global communication network it is easy for SMEs to analyze and know the preferences,

tastes, suggestions of consumers which facilitates constant feedback to maintain

innovation and continuous improvement.

Poon and Swatman (1997) indicate that in Australia they identified an increase in

revenues, an improvement in information management and facilitated a communication

network between internal company applications and inter-organizational functions,

application by citizens, followed by WhatsApp and Twitter.

According to the Branch website (2021) Ecuador has a population of 17.7 million

inhabitants, of which 64.3% reside in urban areas of the country. 77.8% of the population

has connected mobile devices, which represents 13.82 million active devices. In the

country, there are 10.17 million internet users and 14 million profiles in social networks,

representing 78.8% of the population. Compared to 2020, which was a year of digital

immersion caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the digital population increased by 1.5%,

that is, about 147,000 inhabitants joined the Internet as users, so profiles in social

networks increased by 2 million or 16.7%. The most used pages or social networks are

Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and Twitter, the average use of networks such as

According to Del Alcázar's research (2022) 35% of Internet users are in the province of

Guayas, followed by 20% in Quito, 8% in Azuay and 37% in the rest of the country. The

average use of applications and websites most used is Facebook with 18.17 minutes per

day, YouTube with 19.43 minutes per day, Google with 17.26 minutes per day and

Mercado Libre with 5.51 minutes per day. Within the most used social networks are

Facebook with 13.7 million users, Instagram with 5.8 million, Tik Tok with 3.76 million,

WhatsApp with 3.3 million, followed by LinkedIn with 3.2 million, Twitter with 1.5

million, Pinterest with 1.3 million and Snapchat with 0.26 million users. Of these, 20.41%

of Facebook and Instagram users are located in the city of Guayaquil and 16.95% in the

Taken from (Del Alcázar, 2022)

At the commercial level 49% of users prefer to buy through social networks such as

WhatsApp, 49% through shopping or delivery applications such as Shein, Amazon, Uber

Eats, Pedidos Ya, among others; and on websites such as Mercado Libre. Digital sales in

Ecuador in 2019 were USD 1.6 billion, by 2020 they were USD 2.2 billion, so there was

an increase of 54% of online purchases, of which 13% of these were first online purchases

by the user. With respect to 2021, there was a 23.9% increase in e-commerce sales

compared to 2020. The average expenditure per user in e-commerce is USD 340.01 per

year. (Del Alcázar, 2022)

surveyed. They also mention the main benefits of ICTs in microenterprises such as

customer management, order control and follow-up, sales support service, research and

development, ICT investment for these purposes varies between 22% and 36%, which

shows the lack of use of these tools in microenterprises, Despite the high penetration

of ICTs in MSMEs, ICTs are not used in the most optimal way, because only 17% of the

companies surveyed in Ecuador carried out transactions over the Internet, of which 15%

made purchases and 8% sold products or services.

At the level of microenterprises in Guayaquil, the lack of technological tools interferes

with the economic and financial development of companies in this sector, digital

communication channels and research and development technology, this due not only

RESULTS

The main results of the research are based on the fact that in Ecuador the internet

penetration is 79% according to INEC. (2022)

Internet and only 8% made sales. As mentioned by Silva et al. (2018) the main problem

of MSMEs in the city is related to the lack of ICT implementation, digital illiteracy and

the lack of optimal use of these digital tools.

On the other hand, although the growth of digital platforms for marketing increased in

SMEs, it was due to the confinement by the SARS-Covid-19 pandemic that

microenterprises were forced to adopt new technological strategies to survive the

pandemic, since, due to the confinement, traditional or face-to-face sales remained in

the background. Thus, microenterprises resorted to delivery platforms such as Glovo,

Pedidos Ya, Uber eats, which increased their downloads by 200%; and social media

profiles, such as social networks. (Ekos, 2020)and profiles on social networks such as

communication, serve as a source of continuous feedback, market positioning and

marketing tool, but also as a more complete tool that will allow MSMEs to survive in the

market, position themselves, grow and innovate, because it is necessary to always be

aware of trends, changes in payment preferences, communication, consumption, among

others.

But despite this, it should be noted the little use as mentioned by Silva et al. (2018), since

not knowing the use of social networks, or the benefits it brings does not allow the full

development of MSMEs, because the use of ICTs is limited to their most basic functions

as communication tools and not as comprehensive technological tools with which you

can not only perform deep analysis for decision making, also plan budgets, marketing

ritmo-de-la-publicidad-digital-en-2022

Castaño, J., & Jurado, S. (2016). E-commerce. EDITEX. Retrieved from

https://books.google.com.ec/books?id=5WZeDAAAQBAJ&printsec=copyright#

v=onepage&q&f=false