Adoption of Social Media Analytics and Market Agility in Enhancing Digital Marketing Performance of Creative MSMEs

Abstract

Shifting consumer tastes in creative industries require Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to maintain analytical acumen to capture emerging digital trends and pivot rapidly. The adoption of Social Media Analytics (SMA) empowers enterprises to track customer sentiment, content engagement, and competitive dynamics in real-time. This study investigates the impact of Social Media Analytics adoption on creative MSME digital marketing performance, examining market agility as a mediating mechanism. A causal quantitative survey was conducted among 160 owners and marketing leads of creative MSMEs (crafts, fashion, packaged gourmet foods, and applied arts) in North Sulawesi. The empirical data were evaluated via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS 4.0. The findings confirm that Social Media Analytics adoption significantly elevates market agility (β = 0.584, p < 0.001) and digital marketing performance (β = 0.232, p < 0.001). Furthermore, market agility exerts a robust positive effect on digital marketing performance (β = 0.495, p < 0.001) and functions as a significant partial mediator linking SMA adoption to marketing outcomes (β = 0.289, p < 0.001). The model accounts for 54.1% of the variance in market agility (R² = 0.541) and 63.8% in digital marketing performance (R² = 0.638). These insights establish that leveraging social intelligence sharpens product pivot speed and enhances digital advertising returns.