A Dissertation submitted in partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Business Administration (Corporate Management) of
Mzumbe University.
Social media applications has been an avenue that no longer serves as a means of
relaying information to the public on what is going on over parts of the world, but has
been diverted to use as a source of product awareness to the public by utilizing it as a
marketing tool. With the increasing adoption and usage of social media application by
majority individuals in Tanzania, the study intended to make an assessment of social
media in business operation among traders in Tanzania with the specific in Dar es
Salaam city.
The the study main objective was to assess the impact that social media has on income
generation among traders in Tanzania. The study utilized primary data source of
information collected through use of an open ended questionnaire tool in Dar es
Salaam, and a sample of 130 business entities were interviewed. Upon collection,
questionnaires were sorted, cleaned, and entered into Ms. Spreadsheet and further
analyzed using STATA for inferential statistics.
The study findings observed that all the interviewed traders were aware of the social
media in business practice though only 90% of the respondent indicated they use social
media to promote their business mostly on Instagram through their smart phones. The
study revealed that, the way promotions are done and how frequent the adverts are
posted, leads to the increase in demand of the product to the customers and in return
they become loyal customers by 82%. By using a Logit model, a regression analysis
was done and observed two variables; the marital status of the business owners and the
use of social media in advertising the business were negatively and statistically not
significant towards increasing sells of a business
The study further recommends that since social media have been proved and verified
as not sufficient means to foster income generation among traders there should be
adoption of business related skills like investment in financial skills, good customer
care and research and development together with investment in the marketing strategy
skills for effectiveness and efficiency to guarantee income generation among traders.