new opportunities for small business owners. A great advantage of the internet is its global reach therefore enabling smaller companies who do not have the resources to promote overseas, reach actual and potential consumers worldwide through a company website. The effects of online promotions are more far-reaching and have a higher impact which has in turn contributed to the rapid growth of small businesses in various economies.
Social capital is an aspect in reference to the start-up of small business development in the modern economy 'Many small business owners are starting to dabble in social media. And it's easy to understand why. They create blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other interesting content, all in the name of growing their brand' (Phil Simon, 2011). However, not all small businesses rely on social media in order to progress within the market.
Moreover, small firms are growing due to the importance of niche markets, small firms can survive by selecting a premium niche and offering an exclusive brand' that exactly meets the customer requirements of their target segment. They will need to be totally customer orientated. If small businesses are to become successful they should have a strong relationship with their consumers and understand what is working, what isn't working, build on the strengths and core competencies and, have a spectacular niche marketing strategy in order to dominate the niche market. Smaller firms concentrate on selling to a small market, because costs can be kept low due to the savings made by specialisation. IT is usually used by smaller firms as they can concentrate on establishing a strong image and position in their niche. Also niche markets are usually ignored by larger multinational firms, who are not interested in the low sales volume yielded by a small segment. This is the importance to the smaller firm operating in a market niche of being "unimportant", i.e. the larger firms do not see these small firms as a threat and ignore them. Thus the smaller firms can operate without the fear of being put out of business by the larger firms. A good example is Rolls Royce who specialise in the luxury automobile niche. This is proven by the fact that you do not see Rolls Royce cars in showrooms, but instead they are available only on order.
Furthermore, small firms in difficult economic times, such as a recession, small businesses can be an important source of providing employment as larger companies are cutting jobs due to the economic crisis. It is proven that small firms account for majority of the workforce in any country. A vibrant small-firm sector stimulates industry and evolution and generates a good share of new jobs. Accordingly, as Wennekers and Thurik observe,' many economists and politicians now have an intuition that there is a positive impact of entrepreneurship on the growth of GDP and employment (David Deakins and Mark Freel, 2012, p 40).
In modern European economies small firms account for more than 50% of the total number of people employed. This shows that small firms have a huge effect in the European economy when it comes to employment as they offer more than half of the jobs in most countries in Europe.
SMEs play a vital role in the economy, providing new ideas, products, services and jobs.
The UK's 3.7 million SMEs account for approximately 40% of our GDP and have an annual turnover of one trillion pounds. Employing over 12 million people in the UK, they also acc
