Objetivos e hipótesis

being in line with proper marketing.

5.7 FACTORS THAT CAN INHIBIT SMALL BUSINESS FROM USING SOCIAL MEDIA

This section of the questionnaire has four direct suggestions in the form of questions, to extract a valid answer from the respondents. The respondents’

74

were asked to comment on which factors might prevent small businesses from using social media platforms to their advantage. The answers ranged from “lack of internet facilities such as smart phone or computer internet connection” to “unawareness of the capabilities the platforms”, “unawareness of social media platforms” and “not abreast of any marketing strategies”. A four-point Likert scale was used, with one for ‘disagree”, two for “neither agree nor disagree”, three for “agree” and four for “strongly agree”.

In order to simplify the responses into clear categories, responses which indicated “agreed” or “strongly agreed” with either of the statements, were merged and categorised as the percentage that strongly agreed, in Table 5.7. Hence, the respondents who disagreed, as well as those who neither agreed nor disagreed with the statement question, were reported as autonomous statements. This paradigm is justifiable to ensure that the results show only the respondents who agreed with the statements (about the factors that can hinder small business from using social media to their advantage).

Table 5.7: Factors that can hinder the use of social media Number Factors that inhibit the usage of

the platform

Percentage Respondents Standard

Deviation

n=94 Mean 1 Lack of internet facilities such as

smart phone or computer internet connection

37.3% 2.12 1.125

2 Do not know the capabilities the platform can offer

25.8% 1.84 1.106

3 Unaware of social media

platforms

22.6% 1.69 1.189

4 Do not know any marketing

strategies

24.7% 1.74 1.160

75

5.7.1 Factors that can hinder small business from using social media to their advantage

The above summary in Table 5.7 shows that most respondents cited lack of internet facilities such as a smart phone or computer internet connection (37.3%) as a factor that might hinder their businesses from using social media to their advantage. The next percentage (25.8%) refers to those respondents who agreed that they did not know the capabilities social media might offer. Those respondents who did not know about any marketing strategies, made up 24.7%, while 22.6% strongly agreed that they were unaware of social media platforms. The lowest percentage (15.9%) indicates respondents with a lack of interest in social media. The standard deviation above 1 showed the level of disagreement or variation amongst the respondents.

The results show some similarity with previous studies. For instance and to some extent, the findings of Kanchanatanee et al. (2014) in Thailand, who noted that the perception that social media was not useful, and a negative attitude towards e-marketing, were factors that might hinder businesses from using social media to their advantage. Similarly, Werees (2012) found in Canada that respondents perceived their own lack of ability and lack of time as part of the inhibiting factors. These results confirm what was found by Ndlodo and Dhurup (2010) in South Africa, namely that lack of knowledge about e-marketing capabilities was a factor which could inhibit stakeholders from adopting the platforms. The similarity could be attributed to different individual perceptions amongst the participants in the above studies.

5.8 SUMMARY

The main objective of Chapter 5 was to report on the findings and to discuss the results of the survey, conducted to discover whether small business decision- makers utilized social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp for the growth of their SMMEs, in the Cape Metropole, South Africa. The results identified the type of social media marketing platform used, and this was discussed and analysed; the study also examined the purpose for which the platforms were used, the perceptions of respondents about the effectiveness of social media usage for marketing, and how often the decision-makers used the platform for their business’s growth. Lastly, the factors that could inhibit small businesses from using the platform to their advantage, were identified.

76

Concerning the social media network site usage by small businesses, 92.6% agreed that they used social media. Of the sampled small businesses, 58.9% used Facebook for marketing their businesses, while the most popular platform was WhatsApp (82.3%), and then Twitter was the least used platform for marketing with 27.5%. Many SMMEs (76%) used other marketing methods such as email, telephone calls, word of mouth advertising, and flyers.

With regard to the purpose for which social media was used by the small businesses in the study, the results indicated that 67% was for promotional purposes, 58.8% was to inform clients about new products and market them, 65.2% was to increase customer loyalty, and then the most frequent purpose was to socialize with clients (77.3%).

As far as respondents’ perception of the effectiveness of social media marketing was concerned, the results showed that WhatsApp was most frequently used for business marketing (84.8%), followed by Facebook (61.7%) and Twitter (36%). Concerning the measurement of social media effectiveness, this was reflected in respondents’ reported use of simple social media tools, such as Fans/ follows/ like (50.5%), retweet (14%), comments (69.6%), share of conversation (76.8%) and referral (27.5%), which showed the respondents’ choices for effective social media use.

With regards to respondents’ perceptions of how often the platform should be used for the growth of the business, it seemed that daily use (87.5%) was perceived to be the most effective to promote the business, followed by weekly use (66.6%), then hourly use (65.5%) and least effective, monthly use (36.4%). In respect of the factors that might hinder small businesses from using a social media platform to their business advantage, the results revealed a number of factors. The lack of internet facilities such as a smart phone or computer internet connection, was deemed to be the highest factor (37.3%), followed by respondents not knowing the capabilities of social media (25.8%), then respondents having no knowledge of marketing strategies (24.7%) respondents being unaware of social media platforms (22.6%) and lastly, respondents lacking interest in social media usage (15.9%).

The next chapter (Chapter Six) presents a summary of this research and draw conclusion.

77

CHAPTER SIX

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

6.1 INTRODUCTION

This study aimed at establishing whether small business owners / managers utilized social media platforms in the form of Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, to support the growth of their businesses in the Cape Metropole. The scarcity of academic research on the use of social media platform to support the growth of small business in South Africa indicated a need for this study. To achieve this aim, a survey questionnaire was used.

The aim of this chapter is to summarise the results and discuss conclusions about the social media platform used for the growth of small business, the effectiveness of social media platform when used for these small businesses, how often social media platforms are used for the growth of small business, and the factors that could inhibit small business from using these platforms to support their growth.

6.2 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1: PROBLEM AND OBJECTIVES OF THIS RESEARCH

The problem addressed by this research is that small businesses in South Africa were perceived to be failing partly owing to a lack of, or ineffective usage of social media platform to grow their businesses. This study was conducted to address the following research objectives:

 to discover whether social media platforms were being used for the growth of the business;

 to determine the effectiveness of social media platforms, when used for the growth of the business;

 to identify how often small businesses used social media platforms for the growth of the business;

 to identify the factors that could inhibit small business from using social media to support business growth.

78

6.3 SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 2: CONCLUSIONS OF LITERATURE REVIEW