THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING AND CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT ON STARTUP SUCCESS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF DIGITAL LITERACY

Abstract

As growing businesses in the present society demand the use of social media marketing and consumer engagement coupled with varying levels of digital literacy to attain at least basic growth The lack of these developments poses the following research questions, which explore the correlation between social media marketing, consumer engagement, digital literacy and basic growth, as well as the mediating effect of this digital literacy on the effects of social media marketing and the resultant media defines the method used in this study as predominantly. The first variable investigated was social media marketing (IV). The second variable was customer engagement (DV for social media marketing but IV for other variables). The third variable was called ‘digital literacy’, which was the mediator of both consumer engagement and startup success. The last variable studied in this research was the startup success. It has also been found that all four effects are statistically significant and all the specific relations are also significant. SM marketing influences customer engagement which in turn affects startup success positively. Digital literacy is becoming a significant moderate, positively influencing customer engagement and startup success. From these findings, we can conclude that the effective use of social networks, the use of customer relations, and, finally, digital competencies are critical for startups.