Page 252 - MARSIUM'21 COMP OF PAPER

Tuten and Solomon (2018) defined social media marketing as the utilization of social media technologies, channels
and software to create, communicate, deliver and exchange offerings that have value for an organization’s stakeholders.
According to Go and You (2016), social media provides a platform for two-way communication between firms and customers.
It serves as a communication tool for both organizations and customers (Kumar et al., 2016; Gazal et al., 2016). Social media
has become the current trend for firms as it creates new business opportunities and directly aids in generating new business
(Felix et al., 2017). Besides, social media also enhances the relationship between business and customers.
According to Rajahonka and Villman (2019), businesses are facing competitive dynamics, thus digital technology is
an integral part of their business strategies. Quick Facts 2018 (2018) stated that there are in total 6,111 preschools in Malaysia as
of 31st January 2018. The rising number of preschools is due to the increasing demand for early childhood education in
Malaysia (Lydia et al., 2018). To increase business competitiveness, social media adaptation is able to provide great
opportunities for increased consumers’ purchase intention (Ismail, 2017). With the ability for the business to talk with their
customers and allow information sharing of the brand, social media has become a powerful marketing tool (Parsons and
Lepkowska-White, 2018). Zhang and Du (2020) highlighted that good content marketing on social media can create brand
awareness and attract more customers to visit their pages. In addition, Pütter (2017) found that consumers’ awareness and
buying intention increases in direct proportion. With a higher exposure rate to the brand, consumers will have a higher purchase
intention.
Nowadays, there are various social media platforms available for businesses to increase their online presence.
According to Statista (2021), the most popular social media platforms among users in Malaysia in 2020 were Facebook,
Instagram and Facebook Messenger. Hence, many businesses grab these opportunities to establish their social media platforms
on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The increasing popularity of social media is due to the growing number of internet users
and social media users. As updated in December 2020, the number of internet users in Malaysia is 29.16 million while the
number of social media users in Malaysia is 27.05 million (Internet World Stats, 2021). The growing importance of social
media has remarkably influenced how businesses increase their online presence to attract customers. With the highly
competitive environment, preschools nowadays are also adopting social media in their marketing plan.
The number of preschools like kindergarten is growing. To increase trust and perceived value, social media
marketing can be a powerful tool for preschools such as Tadika Santalia. With an effective social media marketing plan, Tadika
Santalia could be able to deliver the useful information to their potential customers. The entertaining and engaging content on
social media could enable trust building and increase the potential customers’ perceived value towards their services, likewise
their consumer’s purchase intention.

1.1 CASE DESCRIPTION AND PROBLEM STATEMENT
Tadika Santalia is a kindergarten that provides preschool services, and it is located at No. 10, Jalan G Tongkang Pecah 83010
Batu Pahat Johor. Tadika Santalia was founded in 1996 by Miss Lim Mei Lee to provide quality education to children aged 4-
6 years. The kindergarten currently possesses 10 teachers and 80 students. The students of Tadika Santalia come from different
races which include Chinese, Malay and Indian. The instruction medium of Tadika Santalia ranges from Bahasa Malaysia to
Chinese, Tamil and English. There are morning and noon class sessions available for the preschool.
The main marketing problem faced by Tadika Santalia is the lack of social media appearance. They possess a
Facebook page that was created on September 19, 2012. However, there was a limited post by the business owner on the
Facebook page and most of the posts were from teachers or parent tags. The business information is mostly unavailable on the
Facebook page. Thus far, there is only the kindergarten address provided without the phone number, website or email address.
Due to this reason, Tadika Santalia is unable to deliver useful information about their services to their potential customers via
social media. People who are interested in this kindergarten could not contact them directly as there is no connection with
Facebook Messenger as well. Based on the observation, there were only two visitors who had reviewed the Facebook page.
This could make Tadika Santalia to receive low customer enquiries. Due to the trends, people tend to review online ratings
before visiting a place (Pütter, 2017). According to Alalwan (2018), social network comments and reviews determine
consumers’ purchasing decisions. People tend to read comments and reviews on social media before they purchase something
or enjoy some services. Hence, the limited online rating on Tadika Santalia’s Facebook page could affect people's trust towards
the kindergarten and directly decrease their purchase intention.
Next, there is limited business background available online. When searching Tadika Santalia from Google, there is
no direct website or information shown. Limited information about the kindergarten background can be obtained via online
platforms such as operating hours, courses available, kindergarten environment and surroundings, students and parent feedback.
According to Chugh and Ruhi (2017), the communication way had been shifted due to the rapid adoption of social media
technologies. Social media is the current trend for most people in getting information. Without online information, people who
wish to understand the kindergarten better could only gain information by visiting the kindergarten. Other than visiting, they
could only get recommendations or suggestions from their friends or family about this kindergarten. As there is no business
background for people as a reference, Tadika Santalia might lose part of their potential customers.
Due to the above marketing issues, this study proposed Tadika Santalia to use their social media which is Facebook
actively. According to Moslehpour et al. (2021), social media provides users with entertaining content and enables interaction
between consumers and businesses. With the adaptation of social media, Tadika Santalia is required to provide more useful
business information for potential customers including entertaining posts actively. Thus, when the potential customers are
searching for information about preschool services through an online platform, trust is built indirectly, and this also increases
the services' perceived value in their mind. This will directly bring to the increase of purchase intention. The use of social

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