Explaining Market Share of Knowledge-Based Firms through Social Media Use with the Mediating Role of Market Penetration Strategy and Customer Relationship Management

Aim and Introduction: With the development of digitalization of marketing activities, marketing professionals increasingly use social media as a strategic tool for effective interaction with customers and stakeholders. Experience shows that firms should have a social media presence for their activities, because the strategic use of social media can be increasingly effective to increase the firm's competitiveness, create a convenient and low-cost user experience, and improve the well-being of customers. On the other hand, the potential gains of social media technologies are evident in business markets and customers are more informed. Also, growing evidence shows that social media can be used strategically to facilitate effective communication with customers, customer retention, and improve firm performance against competitors. Accordingly, social media use is a very good predictor of improved communication and performance development. Finally, with the changes and developments of the digital space and the acceleration of activities, most firms have turned to social media to improve their market share. Based on this, the aim of this study is to investigate the mediating role of market penetration strategy and customer relationship management in the relationship between social media use and market share of knowledge-based firms.

Methodology: This research is a quantitative study, which is considered an applied study due to its nature and results. The statistical population of this research includes knowledge-based firms active in the field of information technology, communication and computer software in the Iran country. The number of these firms in the country is equal to 1891 companies according to the statistics of the vice-chancellor for the development of knowledge-based companies. The data collection of this article was done by means of a questionnaire and in the form of a 5-level Likert spectrum from the statistical population. It should be mentioned that because managing directors and senior managers of firms have more control over firm policies, they were used to fill out the research questionnaire. Also, in order to be surer of the research questionnaire, validity and reliability processes were checked and the necessary corrections were applied with the opinions of experts, and the reliability of the variables was reported and confirmed. In this study, a stratified random sampling method was used from the studied population, and according to the number of the statistical population, Cochran's formula was used to estimate the sample. Also, by collecting 218 data from the statistical population, analysis was done on the subject of the research. It should be noted that several hypotheses were presented to establish the relationship between variables, which were analyzed by structural equation modeling and SPSS and Amos tools.

Finding: The outputs show that the social media use has a positive effect on the market penetration strategy. Also, the social media use has a positive effect on customer relationship management. On the other hand, social media use has a direct and significant effect on the market share of knowledge-based firms. Another finding of the study is related to the mediating role of penetration strategy in the market. The result shows that the market penetration strategy mediates the relationship between the social media use and the market share of knowledge-based firms. Finally, the results show that the mediating role of customer relationship management in the relationship between social media use and market share of knowledge-based firms is significant.

Discussion and Conclusion: Nowadays, with the advent of the digital space, entering different markets became smoother for all types of firms, because it became possible to reach many customers in different places with little cost and little time. On the other hand, in order for firms to maintain their survival in these complex conditions, they need to access an acceptable share of resources and customers in their industry so that they can achieve a good market share and continue their existence. Based on this, the present study acted through the strategic social media use to improve the market share of knowledge-based firms. On the other hand, in order to realize this importance, we took help from market influence variables and customer relationship management to achieve this goal in the relationship between independent and dependent variables, which had not been noticed by researchers in previous studies. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to examine the mediating role of market penetration and customer relationship management in the relationship between the social media use and the market share of knowledge-based firms active in the field of information technology, communications and computer software. For this reason, the contribution of this study in increasing the subject literature and presenting a new model in line with the research variables and the target population is significant. The results showed that the mediating role of market penetration strategy is significant. In this regard, it can be stated that knowledge-based firms can implement their market penetration strategy by investing in social media platforms and activities with the aim of achieving the desired market share. Therefore, knowledge-based firms active in the field of information technologies, communication and computer software can customize their market penetration strategy for social media in order to achieve a significant market share. On the other hand, the present study showed that customer relationship management is a mediating variable in the relationship between the social media use and the market share of knowledge-based firms active in the field of information technologies, communications and computer software. This finding shows that improving the market share through the implementation of the strategy of using social media is not done in a direct way and requires improving the capabilities of managing the relationship with customers in the social media space. Based on this, managers of these firms should prepare their employees for online and digital environments and strengthen the capabilities and skills of online communication with customers in employees. Finally, based on the results, this research has provided practical suggestions for the statistical community.