Mid Sweden University

There is little doubt that crises have a major impact on both companies and humanity. However, the picture is less clear when it comes to what challenges small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have to overcome when facing the crisis. Regulations and recommendations of the government are influencing the challenges to conduct business for SMEs. Social media marketing and the associated communication seems to form a great opportunity to overcome the challenges of the crisis. Additionally, the formation of groups in social media and the associated communication among users can be another beneficial factor during a pandemic crisis. The purpose of this paper is to examine how companies may use social media marketing as a strategy to acquire new customers during a pandemic crisis and comply with challenges arising due to the crisis. Interview data has been gathered from eight owner-managers of SMEs in Sweden; the focus was on Restaurants in Sundsvall. They have been interviewed on aspects of their approach to the COVID-19 crisis, their usage of social media marketing as well as customer acquisition during these times. A thematic analysis was used in order to connect the findings with the theory as well as detecting themes. Themes are: Challenges of a crisis for SMEs, social media marketing, and customer acquisition. The overall picture did show that all the informants suffered from the challenges due to the crisis at some point. Nevertheless, social media is a very useful tool for SMEs like restaurants to market their activities and offers, especially during times of crisis when budgets and income are lower.