Lebanon has been experiencing a harsh economic crisis that hit almost every aspect of the Lebanese society. After 3 years the Lebanese society and mainly the most underprivileged households and individuals had been far away from getting access to income, medical care, financial services etc. According to UN’s estimations 78 percent of the Lebanese people are actually below the poverty line. Almost a quarter of the population was unable to meet their dietary needs by the end of 2020, the UN mentioned in its report about Lebanon. These numbers have significantly increased for sure after a more severe crash in the value of the Lebanese pound.

Along with this miserable reality, the role of the state institutions had totally diminished due to the economic collapse. The villages were the areas suffering the most since small businesses are scarce and therefore private institutions couldn’t compensate for the role that was played by state institutions in the pre-crisis era. However, some forms of social cohesion and security maintained due to the existence of some non-profit and volunteer-based organizations.

Three years after the beginning of a large scale economic and business downturn, many questions regarding how to support the Lebanese society. Therefore, the only reasonable way to tackle the problems our society is facing and to manage the human and material resources is social entrepreneurship. In other words, it’s essential to create new mode for businesses in which everyone is better off and the underserved communities are granted access to essential services. In the case of Lebanon, small businesses have suffered for many reasons. One of the main reasons is that they weren’t able to reach the targeted audience comparing with big firms that had easy access to high-quality ads and sponsors. Nevertheless, with the rise of the role played by social media as a marketing place, small businesses can now build direct bonds with their customers and connect with them in ways that were previously considered impossible. In addition to this, another feature can help small businesses increase their potential and their market reach: Customer data that can be easily collected through social media and thus establishing a view of the market and its preferences. Through social media loyal relations between customers and business can be easily built and marketing expenses would significantly decrease since through these platforms the exact target audience can be reached. For example, likes, comments, shares and saves and other features can be used by the business in order to know that customer is more likely to buy and how the market is reacting to the quality of the product.

All of this have given an extreme advantage to the small businesses to grow and increase their market reach and therefore enrich the competitiveness of the market. The Lebanese society is more than ever in need for such new market that is based on competition since it’s the only way to boost productivity and provide the essential needs as low-cost and high quality services or products.

Sari Zeineddine