Social media: A new tool for managing innovation in SMEs: Analysis in the service sector in the southern region of Ecuador

Today, organizations are called to respond to the growing needs of its customers in a society of constant changes and challenges. This work develops in the southern region of Ecuador, where binationaal commercial trade takes place due to its geographical location and focuses on assessing the innovation management in Pymes (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: EMEs) in the service sector and also analyze the use of social media as an innovative strategy for SMEs to be more competitive in the entrepreneur world. Main results show that innovative SMEs display a 52.83% level of compliance, in which dimensions like “strategic planning”, “human resources” and “social responsibility” are the ones that require further improvement in terms of innovation. Furthermore, social media used by SMEs to advertise their services are primarily web pages and social networks like Facebook® and Youtube®. On the other hand, Instagram®, Twitter® and LinkedIn® show a lesser extent. Finally, this research determines that despite the existence of web 2.0 tools managers are still using traditional means of publicity for safety and fidelity reasons.