A Dissertation Submitted in Partial/Fulfillment of the Requirements for Award
of the Degree of Master of Business Administration in Corporate Management
(MBA-CM) of Mzumbe University.
The crowd taking up of the internet into everyday life is the single biggest experience
that has affected marketing over the last three decades. The rising popularity of social
media forced the marketers to think about this media along with traditional functional
areas of marketing. The research is intended to assess effects of social media as
advertising tool on business performance. Followed by specific objectives that is to
assess the effects of using social media as a tool for advertising and to identify
challenges of use social media as a tool of advertising. Questionnaires were engaged
to assess the effects of using social media as a new marketing tool. The research was
mainly qualitative, using a case study design to gain concrete, contextual, and indepth knowledge. Online marketers were chosen as a case study. Respondents were
selected by purposive sampling for the online marketers and convenient sampling.
Primary data was sorted, arranged, and analyzed. Data were presented by using tables
and figures, was analyzed using statistics and percentages and followed by a
discussion of the findings. In summary, the study reveals that the use of social media
as a tool of advertising products or services brought several impacts to the business
such as; an increase of sales, expansion of the business scope, create brand awareness,
reduce the cost of advertising and facilitates customer services and sharing of
information. Also, the study shows social media tools that are frequently used by
online marketers which are Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter. The study
revealed a number of challenges facing online marketers such as internet connection
problems, expensiveness of internet packages, poor internet access, and provide
alternative measures to overcome those challenges such as extensive support from the
government to the online marketers who use social media platforms as tools of
advertising products or services. Lastly, the study provides recommendations such as
government must inspire online marketers to use good tactics of online advertising,
government through its agencies should create good ways of recognize online
marketers and lastly, provide conclusions and paves the way for areas that can be
considered for further study