ABSTRACT

Social media from the early 2000s had attracted a lot of attention from businesses and individuals to meet the respective needs. For effective business operations or sales, there is need for more development and improvement of products and easy access to the targeted market. This study investigated the effect of social media advertisement on small scale enterprises in Buea municipality. To meet up with the broad coverage of the study, the study was guided by 3 specific objectives which include; to determine the extent to which social media advertisement influence the growth of small-scale enterprises in Buea municipality, to examine if social media advertisement increases the sales of small-scale enterprises in Buea municipality and to ascertain if social media advertisement strengthen the bond between businesses and their customers. These objectives guided the formulation of the hypothesis. The study made use of primary data, collected through the administration of 80 questionnaires to respondents from small scale businesses in Buea. descriptive statistics was presented using tables and charts, while chi-square was employed for test of the hypothesis.

The findings of the study revealed that that social media advertisement has a significant effect on the growth of small-scale enterprises in Buea municipality. The study further revealed that social media advertisement significantly increased the sales of small-scale enterprises in Buea municipality, and that social media advertisement has strengthened the bond between small scale enterprises in Buea municipality and their customers. Thus, the null hypothesis of the study was rejected over the acceptance of the alternative hypotheses. The study recommended small scale enterprises in Buea to continue using social media advertisement as part of their marketing strategy and to utilize social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp to engage with potential customers.

CHAPTER ONE


1.0 Introduction
INTRODUCTION

This study investigated the effect of social media advertisement on small scale enterprises in Buea municipality. This introductory chapter covers the background of the study, the statement of the problem, the research questions, hypothesis, objectives, significance of the study, scope of the study, definition of key terminology and organisation of the study.

1.1 Background of the study

Social media from the early 2000s had attracted a lot of attention from businesses and individuals to meet the respective needs. For effective business operations or sales, there is need for more development and improvement of products and easy access to the targeted market. There is also the need for manufacturers to develop good and easy ways of communicating with their consumer. This is because consumer needs and wants are usually discovered through communication and partially satisfied through communication too. The marketing communication mix is comprised of four major components of which advertising is one. Advertising is one of the most important promotional tools business uses to effectively get to their customers (Gil, Lauren , Rhonda & Andrew, 2019).

According to Mitchell (1986), products with same attributes can give a different impression to customers when advertised by different means. The combination of the extra picture, color and the text in an advertisement makes an ad different among others. The visuals are associated with emotions and these emotions come from social needs generated by social media. The information about the product is packaged by the producer and sent to the audience or market through an advertising media.

Advertising remains an important component of promotion in any organization, whether a big or small business. It is one of several methods of promotion that a business may use to market its products. It gives people the essential information they need to decide whether or not to buy a product, and also identifies the product and its special features (Emeritus, 2022).

Advertisement is derived from a Latin word called ‘Adverto’ which means ‘to turn to advertising’. That is anything employed to draw the attention of people towards any object or purpose. Prasoon Joshi and Burt Manning identified Advertising as the paid, non-personal form of communication about products or ideas by an identified sponsor through the mass media so as to inform, persuade or influence the behaviour of the target audience. Usually, a large audience is targeted during advertisement, and not to one individual. It communicates about products or ideas, (Ayanwale, Alimi, & Ayanbimipe, 2005).

The 21st century has witnessed a huge transition in the way businesses carry out their advertisement campaigns. Before now, advertisement options left in the hands of businesses were, television advertisement, radio advertisement, newspapers advertisement, hocking and etc. The ever first advertising evolution was commercialisations released on television screens. People started watching television more and more. Advertising companies started introducing new characters and celebrities to promote the product. Here, the basic objective for them was to sell the product. This created a culture for the viewers and considering the product was the limelight; the consumers made it a habit to purchase the product. Some of the customers didn’t even know how effective the product was. The advertisements were colorful, creative and innovative which influenced the customers to buy the product and try it on (Richa Raji, 2022).

Later came the internet. More and more internet services were left in the hands of persons which contributed to a massive shift of audience’s attention to social networking channels. Companies understood the threat and ought to consider

social media as an opportunity. Social media plays a vital role in marketing and creating relationships with customers. With limited barrier to entry, small businesses are beginning to use social media as a means of marketing (Nuha, Asmita, Gandhi, and Twinkle, (2018). Since consumers now spends a lot of time defining and disseminating their own contents, marketers have made use of this advantage to market their products using social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This gave these businesses the platform to connect with international markets and get feedback (Evelyn Wangui, 2015). According to Nuha and Asmita (2018), most past findings on advertisement has been carried out in the developed world. Priority on advertisement has not been given to Cameroon, and Buea municipality in particular.

Every business strives to reach a state where customers choose their brand over competitors sheerly out of trust. Social media offers a platform for a company to interact with their customers and form a sacred bond, making social media marketing an important part of digital marketing. It eliminates the middlemen (retailer, wholesaler) between brand and customer, making communication precise and clear. Initially, brand-customer interaction was limited to a yearly event hosted by the company to launch their new products. However, with the advent of social media, brand and customer interaction has become more frequent, easy, and quick. Today, customers can reach out to their brand through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Besides sharing grievances, customers can provide real-time feedback about a product or service without a hassle (Emeritus, 2022).

Small scale enterprises are reaping the benefits of social media. The new platform has given them a medium to interact with their customers and increase awareness about their products. It has also helped small businesses to build a peculiar brand persona among their target audience. Social media is an open forum thattranscends national boundaries. It helps small businesses to serve international customers and diversify their customer base, creating a positive impact on small businesses. Social media marketing is proving to be a cost-effective and efficient marketing medium for such businesses (Emeritus, 2022).

Several authors have come out with theories to support social media advertisement, and its effects on business growth. These theories provide the backbone on which this work iss developed. Amongst these theories is the agenda setting theory of mass communication. Agenda-setting theory suggests that media institutions shape products by determining what elements are most important and featuring them in advertisement campagins. It describes the media as the main entity that selects what news to report and prioritise based on what they think people might care about. Since the media filters and shapes what the audience sees, this can impact how they perceive the product. The media provides access to information that they consider the most relevant to customers. Another theory is the opportunity-based theory anchored to Drucker and Howard Stevenson (1985). It argued that entrepreneurs have no capability to cause change but instead, makes use of the opportunities that changes brings. These changes could be technology, consumer preferences and etc. To them, it provides a clarity on entrepreneur and entrepreneurship. The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. This theory is in line with this research findings as it focus of technological transition in advertisement. The change here could be picked out in the transition in the way advertisement was use to carried out, to the recent social media advertisement (Shah Alam Kabir, 2015). To say it all, this research work is aimed at investigating the impact of social media advertisement on small scale enterprises in Buea municipal