Mapping the Business Functions of Social Media Marketing: A Five-domain Systematic Evidence Synthesis
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
Background: Social media marketing, the use of social platforms to build brand awareness, engage customers, gather market insights, distribute content, and drive sales has become essential to business strategy across firm sizes.
Methods: A systematic review of literature from ScienceDirect, Springer Link, and MDPI, published between 2020 and 2026, was conducted using PRISMA-based screening, yielding 14 studies for full-text analysis, a supplementary VOSviewer keyword co-occurrence analysis of study titles and abstracts was also performed.
Results: Five core domains were identified, expressed as each domain’s share of the 41 total domain-study codings across the 14 studies: brand awareness and promotion (20.93%), customer engagement and interaction (27.91%), market research and insights (9.30%), content creation and distribution (18.60%), and sales and lead generation (18.60%). Customer engagement and brand awareness were the most consistently supported outcomes, while market research remained comparatively under-investigated; the keyword analysis independently corroborated this gap, surfacing no cluster corresponding to market research or content creation.
Conclusion: Social media effectively drives brand visibility, engagement, and sales through quality content and consistent interaction, though its use as a market-intelligence tools remains underutilized. Businesses should prioritize content quality, platform-appropriate strategy, and internal social media capability, while future research should address this documented gap across broader contexts.
Article Details
Copyright (c) 2026 Ama NA.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Twin A, Kindness D, Courage A. Understanding marketing in business: Key strategies and types. Investopedia. 2026; Available from: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/marketing.asp
Rosário AT, Dias JC. Marketing strategies on social media platforms. International Journal of E-Business Research. 2023; 19(1):1–25. Available from: https://doi.org/10.4018/ijebr.316969 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/IJEBR.316969
Guoqiang Z, Bhaumik A. The influence of social media on consumer behavior and digital marketing strategies: A comprehensive review. Advancement in Management and Technology. 2024. 5(2): 30–38. Available from: https://doi.org/10.46977/amt.2024.v05i02.004 DOI: https://doi.org/10.46977/amt.2024.v05i02.004
Yang Y. The impact of social media on consumer purchasing decisions. Transactions on Economics Business and Management Research. 2024; 8: 179–187. Available from: https://doi.org/10.62051/bk13z779 DOI: https://doi.org/10.62051/bk13z779
Cheung ML, Pires G, Rosenberger PJ. The influence of perceived social media marketing elements on consumer–brand engagement and brand knowledge. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics. 2020; 32(3): 695–720. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/apjml-04-2019-0262 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/APJML-04-2019-0262
Riley J. Sustaining customer engagement through social media brand communities. Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science. 2020; 30(4): 344–357. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/21639159.2020.1766990 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21639159.2020.1766990
Xu X. Influencer marketing with social platforms: Increasing brand awareness and user engagement. Journal of Education Humanities and Social Sciences. 2023; 19: 228–234. Available from: https://doi.org/10.54097/ehss.v19i.11039 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54097/ehss.v19i.11039
Van Reijmersdal EA, Walet M, Gudmundsdóttir A. Influencer marketing: explaining the effects of influencer self-presentation strategies on brand responses through source credibility. Marketing Intelligence Planning. 2024; 42(7): 1214–1233. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/mip-03-2023-0125 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-03-2023-0125
Herrando C, Hoyos MJM. Influencer endorsement posts and their effects on advertising attitudes and purchase intentions. International Journal of Consumer Studies. 2022; 46(6): 2288–2299. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12785 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ijcs.12785
Lim WM, Rasul T. Customer engagement and social media: Revisiting the past to inform the future. Journal of Business Research2022; 148: 325–342. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.04.068 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.04.068
Yun J, Park J. The effects of chatbot service recovery with emotion words on customer satisfaction, repurchase intention, and positive word-of-mouth. Frontiers in Psychology. 2022; 13, 922503. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.922503 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.922503
Eslami SP, Ghasemaghaei M, Hassanein K. Understanding consumer engagement in social media: The role of product lifecycle. Decision Support Systems. 2021; 162: 113707. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2021.113707 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2021.113707
Marengo D, Sindermann C, Elhai JD, Montag C. One social media company to rule them all: associations between use of Facebook-owned social media platforms, sociodemographic characteristics, and the big five personality traits. Frontiers in Psychology2020; 11: 936. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00936 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00936
Zhang JZ, Watson GF IV. Marketing ecosystem: An outside-in view for sustainable advantage. Industrial Marketing Management. 2020; 88: 287–304. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.04.023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.04.023
Köseoglu MA, Mehraliyev F, Altin M, Okumus F. Competitor intelligence and analysis (CIA) model and online reviews: integrating big data text mining with network analysis for strategic analysis. Tourism Review. 2020; 76(3): 529–552. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/tr-10-2019-0406 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-10-2019-0406
Meinel M, Eismann TT, Baccarella CV, Fixson SK, Voigt K. Does applying design thinking result in better new product concepts than a traditional innovation approach? An experimental comparison study. European Management Journal. 2020; 38(4): 661–671. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2020.02.002 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2020.02.002
Li M, Teng H, Chen C. Unlocking the customer engagement-brand loyalty relationship in tourism social media: The roles of brand attachment and customer trust. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management. 2020; 44, 184–192. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2020.06.015 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2020.06.015
Argyris YA, Wang Z, Kim Y, Yin Z. The effects of visual congruence on increasing consumers' brand engagement: An empirical investigation of influencer marketing on Instagram using deep-learning algorithms for automatic image classification. Computers in Human Behavior. 2020;, 112, 106443. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106443 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106443
Fernandes T, Castro A. Understanding drivers and outcomes of lurking vs. posting engagement behaviours in social media-based brand communities. Journal of Marketing Management. 2020; 36(7–8): 660–681. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257x.2020.1724179 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2020.1724179
Geng R, Chen J. The influencing mechanism of interaction quality of UGC on consumers' purchase intention – An empirical analysis. Frontiers in Psychology. 2021; 12: 697382. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.697382 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.697382
Park KK, Kim H. Understanding brand image from consumer-generated hashtags. Asia Marketing Journal. 2020; 22(3): 71–85. Available from: https://doi.org/10.15830/amj.2020.22.3.71 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15830/amj.2020.22.3.71
Schilhan L, Kaier C, Lackner K. Increasing visibility and discoverability of scholarly publications with academic search engine optimization. Insights the UKSG Journal. 2021; 34. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.534 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.534
Hassan, H. E. (2024). Social media advertising features that enhance consumers' positive responses to ads. Journal of Promotion Management, 30(5): 874–900. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/10496491.2024.2318668 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10496491.2024.2318668
Dwidienawati D, Tjahjana D, Abdinagoro SB, Gandasari D, Munawaroh. Customer review or influencer endorsement: which one influences purchase intention more? Heliyon. 2020; 6(11): e05543. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05543 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e05543
Vana P, Lambrecht A. The effect of individual online reviews on purchase likelihood. Marketing Science. 2021; 40(4): 708–730. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2020.1278 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2020.1278
Lv J, Wang Z, Huang Y, Wang T, Wang Y. How can e-commerce businesses implement discount strategies through social media? Sustainability. 2020; 12(18): 7459. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187459 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187459
Büyükdağ N, Soysal AN, Kitapci O. The effect of specific discount pattern in terms of price promotions on perceived price attractiveness and purchase intention: An experimental research. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2020; 55: 102112. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102112 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2020.102112
Banerjee S, Dellarocas C, Zervas G. Interacting user-generated content technologies: How questions and answers affect consumer reviews. Journal of Marketing Research. 2021; 58(4): 742–761. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211020274 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00222437211020274
Dash A, Laukkanen T. Does engaging content marketing help generate more B2B leads? In Proceedings of the European Marketing Academy. 2022;51, p. 107378. Available from: https://proceedings.emac-online.org/pdfs/A2022-107378.pdf
Guo J, Li Y, Xu Y, Zeng K. How live streaming features impact consumers' purchase intention in the context of cross-border e-commerce? A research based on SOR theory. Frontiers in Psychology. 2021; 12: 767876. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.767876 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.767876
Tourani N. Thriving in a shifting landscape: Role of social media in support of business strategy. Asia Pacific Management Review. 2022; 27(4): 276–281. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2021.11.001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2021.11.001
Alalwan AA, Rana NP, Dwivedi YK, Algharabat R. Social media in marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and Informatics. 2017; 34(7): 1177–1190. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tele.2017.05.008
Li F, Larimo J, Leonidou LC. Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 2021; 49, 51–70. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00733-3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00733-3
Susanto H, Yie LF, Mohiddin F, Setiawan AAR, Haghi PK, Setiana D. Revealing social media phenomenon in time of COVID-19 pandemic for boosting start-up businesses through digital ecosystem. Applied System Innovation. 2021; Available from: https://doi.org/10.3390/asi4010006 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/asi4010006
Efendi A. The influence of business type on social media platform preferences and digital marketing effectiveness. Jurnal Ilmiah Manajemen Kesatuan. 2025; Available from: https://doi.org/10.37641/jimkes.v13i6.4294 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37641/jimkes.v13i6.4294
Yoo J. Visual strategies of luxury and fast fashion brands on Instagram and their effects on user engagement. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2023; Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103517 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103517
Hou J, Lin WT, Dharawat A, Qu J, Wang Q, Xiao S, et al. Optimize visual shopping journey with embedding-based retrieval in Pinterest Closeup. Proceedings of the 48th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. 2025; Available from: https://doi.org/10.1145/3726302.3731958 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3726302.3731958
Sarder MAU, Mustaqeem KM. The role of social media marketing in shaping educational institution branding. International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science. 2024; 8(3S): 4574–4588. Available from: https://doi.org/10.47772/ijriss.2024.803333s DOI: https://doi.org/10.47772/IJRISS.2024.803333S
Sun Z, Zhang J. Research on the current status, approaches, and development of brand marketing in social media platforms: An analysis of luxury brand marketing on TikTok platform. Lecture Notes in Education Psychology and Public Media. 2024; Available from: https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7048/54/20241617 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7048/54/20241617
Saimsara. LinkedIn vs Twitter/X for professional communication: Scoping review with SAIMSARA. SAIMSARA Journal. 2026; 1(3). Available from: https://doi.org/10.62487/saimsara6455c48d DOI: https://doi.org/10.62487/saimsara6455c48d
Cripps H, Singh AK, Mejtoft T, Salo J. The use of Twitter for innovation in business markets. Marketing Intelligence Planning. 2020; Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/mip-06-2019-0349 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/MIP-06-2019-0349
Febriyantoro MT. Exploring YouTube marketing communication: Brand awareness, brand image and purchase intention in the millennial generation. Cogent Business Management. 2020; 7. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1787733 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2020.1787733
Semeniuk S. Messenger-marketing as a new level of communication with the client. Socio-Economic Problems and the State. 2021; 25(2): 448–456. Available from: https://doi.org/10.33108/sepd2022.02.448 DOI: https://doi.org/10.33108/sepd2022.02.448
Jannah R. Utilization of WhatsApp business in marketing strategy to increase the number of sales through direct interaction. Syntax Idea. 2023; 5(4): 489–490. Available from: https://doi.org/10.36418/syntax-idea.v3i6.1227 DOI: https://doi.org/10.46799/syntax-idea.v5i4.2192
Lal B, Ismagilova E, Dwivedi YK, Kwayu S. Return on investment in social media marketing: Literature review and suggestions for future research. In N. P. Rana et al. (Eds.): Digital and Social Media Marketing: Advances in Theory and Practice of Emerging Markets (pp. 3–17). Springer, Cham. 2020; Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24374-6_1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-24374-6_1
Pellegrino A, Abe M. Leveraging social media for SMEs: Findings from a bibliometric review. Sustainability. 2023b; 15(8): 7007. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3390/su15087007 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su15087007
Fu CJ, Silalahi ADK, Yang LW, Eunike IJ. Advancing SME performance: a novel application of the technological-organizational-environment framework in social media marketing adoption. Cogent Business Management. 2024; 11(1). Available from: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2360509 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2024.2360509
Lestari RB, Sulastri, Shihab MS, Andriana I. Social media marketing and its impact on SMEs' business performance. KnE Social Sciences. 2024; Available from: https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v9i14.16121 DOI: https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v9i14.16121
Zollo L, Filieri R, Rialti R, Yoon S. Unpacking the relationship between social media marketing and brand equity: The mediating role of consumers' benefits and experience. Journal of Business Research. 2020; 117: 256–267. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.001
Ho J, Pang C, Choy C. Content marketing capability building: a conceptual framework. Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. 2020; 14(1): 133–151. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1108/jrim-06-2018-0082 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-06-2018-0082
Gkikas DC, Tzafilkou K, Theodoridis PK, Garmpis A, Gkikas MC. How do text characteristics impact user engagement in social media posts: Modeling content readability, length, and hashtags number in Facebook. International Journal of Information Management Data Insights. 2022; 2(1): 100067. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjimei.2022.100067 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jjimei.2022.100067
Dwivedi YK, Ismagilova E, Hughes DL, Carlson J, Filieri R, Jacobson J, et al. Setting the future of digital and social media marketing research: Perspectives and research propositions. International Journal of Information Management. 2020; 59: 102168. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102168 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102168
Dolega L, Rowe F, Branagan E. Going digital? The impact of social media marketing on retail website traffic, orders and sales. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2021; 60: 102501. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102501 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2021.102501
Santiago J, Borges-Tiago MT, Tiago F. Is firm-generated content a lost cause? Journal of Business Research. 2021; 139: 945–953. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.10.022 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.10.022
Mathur M. Improving the value of the retailer brand through social media equity. Journal of Brand Management. 2020; 27(5): 508–530. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-020-00195-6 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41262-020-00195-6
Ahmad I, Hayee R, Ali MA. Social comparison and impulse buying behavior: the mediating role of utilitarian and hedonic shopping values in an emerging market. Future Business Journal. 2026; 12(1). Available from: https://doi.org/10.1186/s43093-026-00775-z DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s43093-026-00775-z
Vinerean S, Opreana A. Measuring Customer engagement in Social Media Marketing: A Higher-Order model. The Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research. 2021; 16(7). Available from: https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer16070145 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer16070145
Shawky S, Kubacki K, Dietrich T, Weaven S. A dynamic framework for managing customer engagement on social media. Journal of Business Research. 2020; 121: 567–577. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.03.030 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.03.030
Agnihotri R. Social media, customer engagement, and sales organizations: A research agenda. Industrial Marketing Management. 2020; 90: 291–299. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.07.017 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.07.017
Terho H, Giovannetti M, Cardinali S. Measuring B2B social selling: Key activities, antecedents and performance outcomes. Industrial Marketing Management. 2022; 101: 208–222. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2021.12.016 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2021.12.016
Kulikovskaja V, Hubert M, Grunert KG, Zhao H. Driving marketing outcomes through social media-based customer engagement. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services. 2023; 74: 103445. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103445 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretconser.2023.103445
Wang X, Cao Y, Park C. The relationships among community experience, community commitment, brand attitude, and purchase intention in social media. International Journal of Information Management. 2019; 49, 475–488. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.07.018 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.07.018
Hassani A, Mosconi E. Social media analytics, competitive intelligence, and dynamic capabilities in manufacturing SMEs. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 2021; 175: 121416. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121416 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2021.121416
Kumar V, Nanda P, Tawangar S. Social media in business decisions of MSMEs. International Journal of Decision Support System Technology. 2021; 14(1): 1–12. Available from: https://doi.org/10.4018/ijdsst.286686 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/IJDSST.286686
De Oliveira Santini F, Ladeira WJ, Pinto DC, Herter MM, Sampaio CH, Babin BJ. Customer engagement in social media: a framework and meta-analysis. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science. 2020; 48(6): 1211–1228. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00731-5 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00731-5