The role of social media on small/medium business performance: A case of Kinondoni Municipal, Dar es Salaam city

Abstract

This dissertation had a general goal of finding the role of social media on small and medium business performance for the case of Kinondoni municipal, Dar es Salaam city. The sample size was in total 94 respondents which included 84 small/medium business owner managers and 10 customers. This study used both primary and secondary data whereby primary data were collected from the respondents through questionnaire (open and close ended) and interview guide (structured interview). Secondary data was collected through documentary reviews where different journals, past researches, theories, some books and publications related to this study were used. Respondents included small/medium clothing shops, cosmetics shops, mobile accessories shops, make-up shops, home appliances shops and food stuff shops owner managers; customers who engage into business exchange with small/medium businesses through social media. This means that, the study was achieved through a comprehensive study on Small/medium business owner-managers and the customers at Kinondoni municipal. The study found out that social media plays an important role in improving the general performance of the business through increasing the number of customers, profit maximization, increase sales growth, product awareness and enhance brand image. On the other hand, risk and insecurity, poor feedback from customers, limited internet access, costs and information control were the core challenges facing the small/medium business owner managers. For the case of customers, these were the challenges they faced; poor customer care, lack of trust, counterfeited goods, limited access to business pages, sometimes no refund or exchange for the product. The study concluded that an effective use of social media plays a great role on the general performance of small and medium businesses. The performance of the small and medium businesses with social media can be measured using indicators such as increase/decrease of sales growth, increase/decrease of profit margins, increase/decrease of number of customers, and high/low costs. It recommended that the small/medium business owner managers should improve the customer care to their customers and due to some methodological limitations; a future research is recommended to apply qualitative form so as to discover an in deepness understanding of the cause and effect relationship between the variables.