A Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration in Corporate Management (MBA-CM) of the Mzumbe University
This study was aimed at assessing social media as a marketing strategy for micro and
small business, a case study of Kinondoni District, Tanzania. The specific objectives
of this study were to identify the roles played by social media in marketing of
products for micro and small business, to measure social media impacts on marketing
of products through the use of social media trafficking, social media clicks and social
media engagement, to investigate how social media platforms influence the
emergence of new micro and small business and to evaluate the growth of social
media as a marketing strategy for the micro and small business in the speed of
growth of social media and benefits of social media. The population used in this
study included 76 small and micro business owners that have employed employees in
the range of 1 to 5 workers, 6 to 49 workers and 50 to 100, all these small and micro
business owners were located in Kinondoni District (Tanzania-Dar es salaam) which
was the case study area. Data was collected through use of questioners and interview.
The analysis of primary data was done through descriptive statistics.
The study found that the use of social media as marketing strategy had played a great
role to improvement of performance in micro and small businesses through widening
the market reach, improving communication and increasing customer loyalty.
Whereby the products and services have been able to reach a large number of
customers. Also, the study found that the micro and small businesses that had high
trafficking, clicks, and engagement on social media had higher sales performance.
Furthermore, the study found that social media influenced the emergence of new
micro and small businesses through ensuring the availability of customers, increase
of sales performance and increase of customer loyalty. Lastly, the study found that
the growth of social media as a marketing strategy is beneficial to improvement of
micro and small businesses in Kinondoni district.The study recommended that there
is a need for policies that favour the growth of micro as they impact positively on the
economy. The government should support the micro and small businesses to reap the
benefits of social media marketing and enhance the country economy.