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and social media as medium to purchase goods and services are also increasing. From the survey made by Digital Commerce 360
(2020), majority of respondents (82%) stated that social media is the most frequent channel they used to get information about a
brand and products. 29% of the respondents stated that most of the purchases they made were after they find out about the products
from social media. Whereas 66% of respondents agreed that social media plays a key role in influencing their decision to consider
a brand, and over half of respondents (62%) agreed that the presence of social media affects their decision to purchase from a brand.
Therefore, majority of bricks-and-mortar retailers have established their online shopping facility because Covid-19 has forced them
to switch their business model to online shopping platform (Ganesan, 2021).
In Malaysia, more than half small businesses (61.3%) use social media to promote their business to potential customers
due to Covid-19 (Digital News Asia, 2021). This is because social media is one of the most powerful and fast ways to build brands,
and it works as a communications medium to reach wider audiences (Arora & Sharma, 2013). Hence, social media communication
is very important in the current situation as this is the opportunity for retailers and marketers to increase their brand awareness and
at the same time stimulate the purchase intention into consumers’ mind.

In general, social media communication is divided into firm-created and user-generated social media communication.
Firm-created content is a form of communication whereby businesses create and control content and conversations on social media
such as posting advertisement banners (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2015). Firm-created social media communication is important
for today’s business as it generates higher awareness or consumers association to the brand (Hermaren & Achyar, 2018). Meanwhile,
user-generated content refers to content created by the people but not a professional marketer (Negoro & Alif, 2020). According to
Bashir, Ayub, and Jalees (2017), user-generated content is useful for marketers as the marketing cost can be reduced by using
valuable contents created by loyal customers. Both social media communication are beneficial in developing the brand awareness
(Negoro & Alif, 2020). For instance, marketers can attract more people to visit their page by creating interesting and engaging
content, which in turn, the content can influence the consumers to give reviews and feedback. When the social media communication
is used efficiently and effectively, brand can develop the passion in the mind of social media users, and further encourage them for
purchase intention towards the brand (Mukherjee, 2020).
Sajid (2016) stated that the combination of marketing strategies can reach widest audiences. In this case, Lee, Hosanagar,
and Nair (2014) suggested that businesses could use a mix of informative and entertaining contents to enhance customer
engagement and reach to more potential customers. Further, the exposure to the social media communication will be able to
influence consumer purchase decision (Xie & Lee, 2015). Evidently, brand passion has positive impacts on consumer purchase
intention, word-of-mouth, brand engagement, and brand loyalty (Gilal et al., 2021). Additionally, social media is the most cost-
effective marketing medium because businesses do not have to spend much money to advertise their product or service, unlike
traditional marketing whereby they need to spend on printed media (Hassan, Nadzim, & Shiratuddin, 2015). Social media marketing
is very useful for many new small businesses such as Pro Bakers to create more active and thoughtful interactions with their target
market.

1.1 Case Description and Problem Statement
Pro Bakers Enterprise is a new baking supply store, selling mainly bakery ingredients and tools. The business was started in early
February 2021 and the store is located in Kulai, Johor. The store is currently managed by Madam Lim Siew Leng and Helen Yong
as assistant. Pro Bakers’ customers include buyers who buy for home and business use, but mostly for home use. Pro Bakers’ main
target market include home bakers, businesses like bakery shop or selling bakery products, and the local community who stay at
Bandar Putra and Kulai area. Pro Bakers emphasize on tidiness, products with fair price, passion in introducing correct products to
meet customer’s requirements and learn together with their customers in exchanging baking ideas. Pro Bakers aims to generate
stable income, gain more attention from the local community, and supply the best quality bakery ingredients with fair price.
The main issue faced by Pro Bakers is low in purchase intention from their customers due to limited contents posted on
their social media. Social media communication is a way companies share valuable contents through various images or videos
consistently with the purpose to gain profitable customer movement (Świeczak, 2012). If a brand constantly posts similar format
of contents, consumers will get uninterested and finally disengage themselves from the brand, which will lower the consumer
passion towards the brand and purchase intention (Wong & Yazdanifard, 2015). Gümüş (2017) also revealed that when a brand has
low content creation resources and limited variety in types of content, then, the brand will not be able to increase its customer
loyalty and customer retention.
Moreover, Pro Bakers has no fixed schedule posts on their social media. For instance, they are not consistent in sharing
their contents. Most contents were posted once a week and twice a week. According to Petruca (2016), marketers are suggested to
post every day on social media consistently to grow their business. To make sure a business can fully utilize the benefits of social
media and further incite the purchase intention in the mind of consumers, optimal scheduling of social media posts such as timing
of the posts, how often a business should post, and what kind of content should a business posts are also important (Kanuri, Chen,
& Sridhar, 2018). Furthermore, the marketing ideas of Pro Bakers are limited, and they do not have an efficient marketing strategy
that follow on-trend with today’s world. According to Gümüş (2017), the lack of effective content marketing strategies will stop a
brand from increasing its potential consumers. As highlighted by Wong and Yazdanifard (2015), businesses must have effective

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