Abstract

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) small business owners are vital contributors to U.S. economic growth. Nevertheless, this demographic confronts steep impediments to its socioeconomic success in the form of racism and blame for the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, many AAPI entrepreneurs are burdened by marketing strategies that do not adequately drive consumers to their businesses. In response to these issues, this paper advocates for the skillful integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into AAPI entrepreneurs’ social media marketing strategies that target U.S. consumers. To this end, there are three beneficial AI-driven social media marketing techniques that this paper addresses. These techniques include dual-coding, play-based approaches, and cultural sensitivity tools. This paper then concludes by recommending that AAPI entrepreneurs continually monitor and adjust evolving AI technology as well as their chosen marketing strategies to accelerate success.

The Plight of AAPI-Owned Small Businesses

Background Context

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) small business owners are pivotal to the U.S. economy and contribute to a variety of its sectors. From Silicon Valley start-ups to inner-city restaurants, their small businesses comprise a vibrant mosaic of entrepreneurial success stories. For the purposes of this paper, small businesses consist of fewer than 500 employees. In 2020, there were 612,194 AAPI-owned small businesses in the United States that employed approximately 5.2 million people (Lupo 6). Furthermore, “The AAPI community is among the most diverse in terms of ethnicity, language, immigration history and education” (The National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development). The AAPI community is composed of at least forty different ethnic populations and typically comprises the highest number of any minority group (U.S. Census Bureau Staff). 

AAPI-owned small enterprises are also vital cultural assets on a nationwide scale. Their businesses imbue locales with authentic personalities and help fulfill the socioeconomic needs of locals. The benefits of AAPI-owned small businesses also extend to the entrepreneurs themselves. “With limited English proficiency and fewer options for entering the U.S. job market in positions that offer pathways to growth and financial stability, many turn to entrepreneurship to support themselves and their families” (The National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development). 

Racism 

Unfortunately, AAPI-owned small business owners have faced a statistically significant closure rate. One reason for this disturbing trend is due to racism. There are many members of the U.S. general public who tend to regard their AAPI community members with suspicion and as perpetrators of COVID-19. “In 2020, approximately 30% of Americans have personally witnessed someone blaming Asians for the coronavirus” (NBC News Staff). Stigmatization and pandemic blame have been critical factors that affected AAPI entrepreneurship. “Among small businesses, consumer discrimination is especially salient for restaurants that specialize in ethnic cuisines, as the food’s ethnic origin is a key aspect of product differentiation. Although restaurant entrepreneurship remains a pathway to economic success for Asian Americans, discrimination by consumers can negatively affect the efficacy of this pathway, especially during periods of heightened anti-Asian sentiment” (Huang et al.). 

Both during and after the pandemic, AAPI restaurant traffic significantly declined on a local and nationwide scale. “Our calculation indicates that the relative consumer avoidance of Asian restaurants through the pandemic cost those restaurants US$7.42 billion in foregone revenue in 2020” (Huang et al.). Due to easily-identifiable naming practices, other AAPI-owned small businesses such as dentist offices and legal firms were also prone to a similar xenophobic phenomenon. “These results translate really well to other classes of businesses that are ethnically identifiable—lawyers, doctors or dentists; landscaping companies; barbers or nail salons or beauty salons. All these businesses are subject to these same forces, whereby if an individual holds these blame sentiments, then that could be expressed in consumer avoidance” (Needham). 

Ineffective Marketing Strategies

It is important for AAPI entrepreneurs to implement effective marketing strategies to help offset the negative effects on their small businesses caused by such rampant racism. The American Marketing Association defines marketing as the “...activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” (American Marketing Association Staff). Marketers that are unable to positively connect with various consumer types are at a disadvantage. This is primarily because they are more susceptible to customer actions such as complaints and a lack of client referrals that can hurt their company’s reputation. Many AAPI-owned small businesses struggle with effective marketing strategy implementation. The results of such ineffective marketing techniques can be devastating. “Almost 50% of all small businesses close within 5 years in part because of poorly executed or inadequate marketing strategies” (Lupo 2).

One reason why many AAPI entrepreneurs have been unable to wield successful marketing strategies is because of their exposure to past ideologies in their countries of origin that prioritized equality over differentiation. “Many Asian businesses tend to be unsuccessful because they face socio-cultural difficulties in their process of adapting to America’s consumerism culture. This is primarily because Asian consumers come from collectivistic cultures that do not necessarily gravitate toward personalized marketing strategies” (Nguyen et al. 43). This is problematic because American consumers tend to be individualistic. As a result, these consumers are more likely to purchase products and services when they are customized to their needs. 

Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into AAPI Entrepreneurs’ Social Media Marketing Techniques

Background Context on AI

AI-driven social media marketing techniques have the potential to assist AAPI entrepreneurs who face the aforementioned issues. AI is a concept that needs clarification before proceeding. ‘Intelligence’ can be understood as “...an unconcealed ability to decipher problems and an inherent ability to learn escape procedures from problems. Taking this into account, we can determine artificial intelligence as a technology capable of finding solutions to a defined set of challenges” (Geru et al.). Targeting, demand forecasting, lead generation, and closing are just a few of the sales-related functions with which AI technology can assist businesses. “According to a leading researcher in the field, Andrew Ng, AI has been recently taking off primarily because of factors such as advanced algorithms (like deep neural networks), increased computational power and large sets of data” (Molsa 2). To date, AI has been used in business applications across multiple fields. These include, but are not limited to, Natural Language Processing, Natural Language Generation, Robotic Process Automation, Image Recognition, and Computer Vision. “As contemporary marketing is increasingly digital, more data is available for the use of AI systems. AI systems can assist marketers in tasks such as market research, churn analysis, social media monitoring and personalization of customer experience” (Molsa 6). 

Indeed, AI seems to be influencing nearly every aspect of digital marketing campaigns. Specifically, there is a recent trend suggesting that the incorporation of AI into social media can offer businesses significant returns on investment. Across social media and other marketing platforms, “...[m]ore than 7,000 software applications empower every aspect of a consumer journey and encourage seamless execution. Besides the number of solutions, marketing technology is also growing in its level of sophistication as intelligent algorithms are becoming core to these services” (Mari 3). 

Background Context on Social Media Marketing

The aforementioned technological advances in marketing technology are particularly true of social media. “Social media can be defined as an online application program, platform, or mass media tool that facilitates interaction, collaboration, or content sharing between users in general” (Bilgin 149). Social media marketing can serve as a viable resource for many AAPI small business owners. Unlike the higher costs of other marketing strategies such as search engine optimization and advertisement placement on established websites, social media marketing can be relatively cost-effective for this underrepresented group. “Some small businesses find it difficult to mitigate time, resources, and ambitions to successfully adopt innovations that would contribute to growth…[yet] social media marketing allowed small scale…owners’ adoption of low-cost marketing strategies to support their overall business plan” (Lupo 18). By way of background, social media marketing involves the use of an advanced technological networking platform to establish a two-way communication between consumers and businesses. This is vastly different from more traditional marketing platforms that center on one-way exchanges. “In today’s information age, social media has become an integral part of daily life as a communication channel in which consumers reflect their consumption habits, preferences, opinions, likes and experiences in their own eyes and interact with other users” (Bilgin 141). 

From this perspective, it seems that adopting social media marketing can therefore open a vast communication space in which customers connect with one another, with other users, and with AAPI small businesses. It also provides considerable prospects for such businesses that can then target their marketing campaigns to specific segments of the population based on their interests. Furthermore, “[t]hanks to social media marketing activities, businesses can perform activities such as creating their own personal brand profiles and introducing online customer service, product information and special offers in a simple, cheap, and continuous way” (Bilgin 149).

Studies have found that 90 percent of small businesses use at least one social media platform (Bandyopadhyay 2). Yet they may not be optimizing such usage. Before AAPI small business owners begin engaging with social media as a potential marketing tool, they should first ensure that they know how to use it effectively. Researchers have identified “...seven steps [that] are commonly recognized when trying to develop a social media marketing strategy. They include the business determining its objectives, knowing its target audience, choosing three to five main topics that it wants to use for search engine optimization, creating a presence on all social media platforms it wishes to utilize, setting social media engagement by encouraging customers to engage with the business on any social media platform, planning its resource use for maintaining a social media presence, and lastly, measuring the results” (Bandyopadhyay 3). There are several effective AI-driven strategies that AAPI entrepreneurs can use in tandem with the aforementioned steps to enhance their businesses. These strategies include the interrelated areas of dual-coding, play-based techniques, and an array of culturally-sensitive approaches throughout their social media marketing campaigns.

Social Media Marketing Technique #1: AI-Driven Dual-Coding (Text and Image Analyses)

Potential consumers are more likely to remember entrepreneurs and their businesses if presented with the social media marketing strategy of a picture above a description of the company or user’s name. This psychological tool could be utilized within an AI context to improve AAPI entrepreneurial marketing campaigns. “An explanation for the finding that people remember verbal information better when it is paired with pictures could be based on Paivio’s Dual Coding theory” (Kargopoulos et al.). Psychology Professor Allan Paivio’s Dual Coding Theory suggests that human cognition is divided into two separate methods of processing information: visual and verbal stimuli. The display of information as a comprehensible image is far superior to a word, design, or shape (Paivio). This is partly because pictures may be stored separately in the brain from their textual counterparts. Nevertheless, these distinct entities are interconnected. Pictures often imply specific words which simultaneously become coded and stored in different brain regions. When dually coded, such images tend to be easier to recall than if they were unpaired with text.

Furthermore, Psychology Professor Philip Kargopoulos indicated that “...text is remembered better when paired by suitable pictorial stimuli; the embedded pictures and illustrations must be meaning-relevant and must not distract the reader” (Kargopoulos et al.). Images used in social media advertisements should therefore be relevant and meaningful to their corresponding text in order to attract customers. As established by Paivio, visual representations may hold inherent meanings which can inadvertently be misconstrued if depicted inaccurately. Thus, forging an accurate parallel between the image and the message conveyed in the advertisement is a fundamental aspect of social media marketing. 

Another finding of Kargopoulos was variations in memory capabilities across different genders in the dual-coding process. “When men and women were compared on memory for automobiles and faces…men were found to be better at recognizing cars, whereas women were better at recognizing faces. Men also scored higher on memory for men’s faces and women scored higher on memory for children’s faces…” (Kargopoulos et al.). This suggests that particular gender-based market segments can be more inclined to have better memory retention for certain information when compared to others. Therefore, to maximize brand recall and memorability, it can be beneficial for AAPI entrepreneurs to use AI in dual-coded ways that tailor their social media advertisements to be visually appealing and resonate with their target market on the basis of gender.

Additionally, using dual-coding for image-based searches in social media accounts that portray a company’s products or services in a favorable manner can result in increased positive brand awareness. “Image-based search seems to be highly applicable for consumers in emerging markets where the penetration of smartphones (which easily enable image capture and transfer) far exceeds the penetration of personal computers…The ubiquity of smartphones should also greatly expand search and purchase opportunities for millions of illiterate (and low literate) consumers across many emerging economies” (Kopalle et al.). Through the use of dual-coded image-based searches, customers from various backgrounds are able to identify products through their smartphones. Ensuring that AI-driven social media posts display products in a positive manner can yield increased sales for AAPI entrepreneurs. 

One of the foremost AI tools that are rooted in dual-coding is D-Labs. “...D-Labs [is] a new AI-fueled offering that is capable of extracting brand logos from images posted on Instagram…” (Kopalle et al.). D-labs uses AI to track how businesses are shared and portrayed among Instagram users. D-Labs illuminates new opportunities for brand monitoring, market research, and targeted advertising campaigns. This is because of its efficient and effective ability to recognize company logos. As a result, AAPI small business owners can use D-Labs to make better decisions and successfully build their brands. In the process, AAPI entrepreneurs may track not just how their brands are perceived but also which people are responding favorably to their presence. 

Social Media Marketing Technique #2: AI-Driven Play-Based Approaches

Play is a fundamental aspect of human interactions. Playfulness can be defined as “...a behavior or activity pursued with the goal of amusement, enjoyment, and fun” (McShane et al.). Playfulness has the potential to fuel consumer interest in AAPI entrepreneurs’ products and services because it ignites curiosity and enjoyability. When applied to the AI-driven social media marketing strategies of this demographic, this technique has the potential to increase brand awareness and customer engagement. Indeed, there are “...positive outcomes associated with perceptions of playfulness such as greater likelihood of using…certain social media platforms…of using a certain retailer website…and of achieving high levels of customer satisfaction” (McShane et al.). Numerous research studies have also revealed that playfulness is a vital component with respect to encouraging frequent interactions with social media content. Playfulness has been shown to foster “...consumer behavior and the continuity of follow-up, which creates positive emotions/feelings about the brand in the minds of followers on social media. Even if the reasons for using social media differ, individuals emphasize that the content which arouses the attention of those who find the content amusing and pleasing…” (Bilgin 132) can be engaging.

One way for AAPI entrepreneurs to facilitate playfulness is by using AI-based non-textual cues or vocalizations (i.e., “LOL”) in social media interactions with prospective customers. This, in turn, can positively impact consumer engagement. Such textual paralanguage can be understood as the “...written manifestations of nonverbal audible, tactile, and visual elements that supplement or replace written language…” (Luangrath et al.). Furthermore, AI-driven emojis are forms of non-textual paralanguage that AAPI small business owners can use via social media. Using emojis effectively can enable this demographic to improve the perception of their products and services while boosting their relationships with consumers. “Emojis, which are pictographs that represent facial expressions, people, places, or things…are becoming a mainstream form of communication. Ninety-two percent of consumers online use some form of emoji in their communications” (McShane et al.). In addition, recent estimates indicate that over 700 million emojis are used daily on just Facebook posts alone (Buchholz). Another advantage of using emojis is that they can help streamline and enhance communication. Emojis “...have the potential to reduce misinterpretations, convey emotion, and clarify intention” (McShane et al.). 

In light of these findings, it seems that AAPI entrepreneurs can leverage emoji usage to their advantage. Given the widespread use of emojis, AAPI entrepreneurs can implement this non-textual paralanguage in several key ways. Emojis do not merely allow entrepreneurs to more effectively showcase their brands. Perhaps more importantly, emojis equip these small business owners to create a personal emotional experience with potential clients. These factors can, in turn, increase the likelihood that a purchase will take place. 

Interestingly, effective AI-driven emoji usage in social media campaigns is not necessarily limited to consumer interactions. In fact, it is gradually “...becoming a dominant form of expression in brand communications. Well-known brands such as Sony, Chevron, Coke, Burger King, and Taco Bell have all embedded emojis into their marketing communications, with many having developed customized brand emoji[s] as well” (McShane et al.). The successful implementation of emojis in advertisements by these major corporations can be attributed to part of their significant revenue growth. By mimicking these strategies and incorporating emojis into their AI-driven social media marketing tactics, AAPI small businesses can increase their return on investment. 

In addition, AI-driven emojis that interact with textual content in social media posts may increase consumer engagement substantially more than those that do not. The positive impact of this emoji-text combination can enhance brand impressions on an emotional level. At the same time, it can even promote a profound sense of enjoyment among many consumers. “The mere presence of an emoji in brand tweets increases the extent to which consumers like and share content and that more emoji within a message amplify this effect further. Our two subsequent lab studies highlight nuances in this relationship between emojis and engagement, showing that emojis enhance engagement primarily when they precede highly related text in that they convey greater playfulness” (McShane et al.). By leveraging AI in ways that draw upon this mixed-method approach, AAPI small business owners can maximize the impact of their social media marketing campaigns. This is particularly true with respect to the ability of such strategies to integrate a sense of playfulness in their messaging while ensuring that the emojis being used are relevant to the textual content that accompanies them. 

In addition to using emojis, securing an affordable social media influencer with an established AI-based social media platform that has a playful style can benefit AAPI entrepreneurs. Influencer levels of playfulness may impact social media users’ positive perceptions of both AAPI brands as well as their advertised products and services. “Social media users may have a relatively lower level of loyalty toward their favorite influencers because there are many alternatives on social media, and they can easily and simply search for alternatives…[thus] there is a need to determine how to develop and maintain long-term relationships with their followers and consumers on social media” (Kim and Baek). One effective method of reinforcing these relationships is by understanding the impact that such influencers have on consumers that engage with them. Influencers who can connect with consumers’ motivations in a playful way can be critical in this regard. This strategy, in turn, “...leads users to consume influencers’ digital content and purchase the products/services promoted and advertised by the influencers” (Kim and Baek). 

AI-driven chatbots that engage with consumers via social media may serve as another effective tool for AAPI entrepreneurs to promote their businesses. Extensive survey data “...from 1,064 consumers who used any chatbot service from the top 30 brands...indicated that utilitarian (information), hedonic (entertainment), technology (media appeal), and social (social presence) gratifications obtained from chatbot use positively predicted users’ satisfaction with chatbot services of their selected brand” (Cheng). Although chatbots are typically associated with websites, they have also been increasingly used as part of business’ social media accounts. 

In general, it appears that playfulness and personalization may be key components of successful chatbot interfaces within the context of social media. Customers may particularly enjoy being able to converse naturally and even feel a connection with a chatbot’s playful ‘personality.’ This can promote “...more intimate consumer-brand relationships [and] greater trust” (Hildebrand and Bergner 36). AI-driven chatbots can also be leveraged in social media contexts to allow AAPI entrepreneurs to sell extra items and services in addition to a consumer’s initial purchase. For example, researchers have found that “...consumers were almost twice as willing to trade-up to more costly options and add-on services when they were offered by a humanized chatbot. This effect increased even further for more personalized interfaces matching fundamental consumer characteristics” (Hildebrand and Bergner 38) – including playfulness. The aforementioned findings suggest that a combination of down-to-earth interaction, customization, and playfulness are important components of AI chatbots that are integrated into social media and can yield a positive return on investment for the AAPI entrepreneurs that use them. 

Social Media Marketing Technique #3: AI-Driven Cultural Sensitivity

Culture encompasses a diverse array of worldviews and can be defined as “the way of life, especially the general customs and beliefs, of a particular group of people at a particular time” (Cambridge University Press Staff). Culture can also profoundly shape shared behaviors and create customs that provide security and predictability (Hirsh). Due to the complexity within and across cultures, cross-cultural marketing can be a difficult undertaking. One reason for this issue is because cultures may vary widely in terms of fundamental values, nonverbal communication styles, and demography. 

Culture not merely impacts human actions but also represents a collection of human products. In turn, marketing messages, including those targeted at specific audiences, are inevitably influenced by the cultures that they represent (Hirsch). This is one reason why intercultural competence can be a crucial skill for AAPI entrepreneurs to develop and integrate within their AI-driven social media marketing plans. Intercultural competence has been shown to enable business owners to exert a significant level of influence beyond their own cultures. Consequently, this skill can allow AAPI entrepreneurs to personalize AI with flexibility in its communication styles. This may enable such business owners to more deeply connect with the cultural preferences of their consumers (Hirsch). 

In addition, the fact that cultures are dynamic and evolve over periods of time is an important consideration throughout this process. Rapid societal advancements, exposure to different cultural norms via social media, and momentous historical occurrences may all have a large impact on a given culture. In turn, these factors can influence consumer behaviors and shape their underlying motivations. These factors also offer AAPI entrepreneurs key insights into the cultural identities of their purchasers and users of their products, when they engage in shopping, how and where they can be reached by social media, and what product and service needs are emerging (Boachie-Mensah and Boohene).

AAPI entrepreneurs should therefore program their AI tools to consider their customers’ cultural contexts when engaging with them on social media. This can allow AI to adjust its communication styles accordingly. In addition, small business owners who monitor cultural changes can discover new opportunities to increase their profitability. Such monitoring and corresponding tweaks can improve the efficiency of their marketing tactics for already-existing items or enable them to seize fresh opportunities for new products and services. Thus, AI should be personalized by AAPI small business owners “...to make an analysis of the preferred style of communication of their recipients (also from the perspective of preferences and cultural values) and appropriately adapt messages, if it is necessary. A broad spectrum of applied styles of communication enables effective and appropriate interaction with people of various cultural backgrounds” (Hirsch). 

One important consideration for AAPI-owned small businesses is the cultural tendencies of many American customers. In general, the worldviews of non-AAPI and AAPI customers can vary due to their differing cultural norms. Professor Emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management Geert Hofstede explains this phenomenon through his theory of two common cultural dimensions: individualistic and collectivistic. “Hofstede…described individualism-collectivism as the relationship between the individual and the collectivity that prevails in a given society. In individualistic cultures, individuals tend to prefer independent relationships to others and to subordinate ingroup goals to their personal goals. In collectivistic cultures, on the other hand, individuals are more likely to have interdependent relationships to their ingroups and to subordinate their personal goals to their ingroup goals” (Han and Shavitt). 

Individualistic cultures tend to place a strong emphasis on independence, personal success, freedom, and fierce competition. In contrast, interdependence, harmony, family security, social hierarchy, and a widespread sense of collaboration are linked with collectivistic cultures. Individualistic cultural patterns are typically predominant among many U.S. immigrants who come from northern and western regions of Europe, as well as North America. Yet collectivistic cultural patterns tend to be far more prevalent among U.S. immigrants who are from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific (Han and Shavitt). In light of these contrasting cultural-based tendencies between AAPI entrepreneurs and their non-AAPI consumer base, devising effective AI-driven social media marketing strategies can be challenging. “By adding a new dimension to the complex nature of customer dynamics…marketers must understand the individualist-collectivist-framework in order to better plan their targeting and customer engagement tactics” (Nguyen et al. 42).

The individualist-collectivist paradigm described above has far-reaching implications for AAPI small business owners as they seek to create effective AI-informed social media marketing campaigns. “The rationale for investigating cross-cultural comparisons of customer engagement tactics is the belief that culture driven differences impact…the way in which customers react to customer engagement tactics” (Nguyen et al. 42). Individualistic customers generally place a greater emphasis on the impact of one-on-one communication, service, and high customization in business contexts. On the other hand, collectivistic customers tend to assign a far greater importance on price and reputation that have been forged in societal contexts when considering whether to purchase a product or service (Nguyen et al. 52). 

The differing ideologies between individualist and collectivist perspectives can translate into specific AI-generated social media marketing campaigns for AAPI small business owners. Research has shown that in countries with high numbers of citizens with collectivist worldviews a slogan such as ‘Share the moments of joy and happiness with your loved ones’ can be more effective than a more individualist message in the form of ‘Come and try to discover yourself’ (Hirsch). By tailoring AI-created social media advertisements to align with the cultural dimensions of their target markets, AAPI entrepreneurs can significantly boost their effectiveness and return on investment.

One area of overlap regarding the marketing preferences of individuals from collectivistic as opposed to individualistic cultures was found by Industrial-Organizational Psychology Professor Hannah-Hanh D. Nguyen. One of Nguyen’s studies showed that both individualistic and collectivistic customers generally favored recommendations from friends as reliable sources of information when determining whether to purchase a product or service (Nguyen et al. 54). This finding suggests that one way for AAPI entrepreneurs to improve their businesses is by using AI to encourage social media referrals. Overall, Nguyen’s research suggests that “...there are efforts for marketers to take, such as considering and incorporating cultural issues in their targeting strategies, in order to maximize the effectiveness of the impact of customer engagement tactics. This will give a marketer a better head start on creating a strategy to increase profits and customer loyalty” (Nguyen et al. 54).

There are also a number of specific cultural markers that AAPI entrepreneurs can use to their advantage in their AI-driven social media marketing strategies. “Cultural markers are interface design elements and features that are prevalent, and possibly preferred, within a particular cultural group. Such markers signify a cultural affiliation. A cultural marker, such as a national symbol, color, or spatial organization, for example, denotes a conventionalized use of the feature…not an anomalous feature that occurs infrequently” (Barber and Badre 2). Some cultural markers may be particular to a given geographic location or demographic. This tends to be especially true when consumers within that region share similarities in language. 

When confronted with catering to the different languages of their consumer base, AAPI entrepreneurs may need to significantly personalize their AI-generated social media advertisements. For example, many of their Middle Eastern American customers may likely speak Arabic or Hebrew. In these circumstances, AAPI small business owners should consider directing their AI-driven social media campaigns to orient content (including, but not limited to, visuals, text, and links) from right-to-left, as opposed to centering it or presenting it in a left-to-right format (Barber and Badre 9). The spatial orientation of AAPI entrepreneurs’ content has immediate implications for usability among their customers. While the left side of an advertisement might be the first focus of attention for an American who does not speak a right-to-left language, the right side could be the initial focus for a Middle Eastern American (Barber and Badre 9).

Concluding Recommendations 

AAPI small business owners can begin to surmount the racially-charged stigmatization that they face by effectively leveraging AI-driven social media tools. As this paper suggests, skillful social media strategies that this community can adopt may entail dual-coding, play-based approaches, and cultural sensitivity tools. Given the potential of each of these tools to enhance small business pursuits, this paper recommends that AAPI entrepreneurs wield as many of them as possible – preferably in combination with each other. As AI continues to evolve over the coming years, AAPI entrepreneurs are encouraged to frequently hone their social media marketing techniques in real-time. To do so most effectively, “...an agile ‘test and learn’ approach is vital when implementing AI. Companies can…prototype a solution within weeks, test it with business units and then decide how to advance in the project” (Molsa 8). 

Beyond social media, AAPI entrepreneurs may also seek to explore other cost-effective, AI-driven marketing tools through which they can promote their businesses. For certain segments of their consumer bases, some marketing approaches may be preferable to social media. For instance, “...individualistic customers view e-mails as a preferred way to hear about promotions, while collectivistic customers do not list e-mails as their preferred method of receiving offerings” (Nguyen et al. 54). In light of such findings, AAPI entrepreneurs may be able to integrate AI into other marketing areas in order to craft effective customer engagement tactics. Overall, adopting a heightened level of attention and diligence to these details can help AAPI entrepreneurs maximize their return on investment from their chosen marketing techniques and succeed.

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