Social media used by different small and medium enterprises during COVID -19 in Njombe Town.

Abstract

Social media marketing has highly been adopted by many small or huge firms in different parts of the world. Meanwhile during the breakout of COVID-19, many businesses were under crisis due to social distancing put by the Government and the nature of its spread. This tuned firms to find other means to adopt in order to serve their business. The point where business owners to identify marketing strategies and prioritised for cost efficient during the pandemic. The study used questionnaire, focus group discussion and interview for data collection. The study reached a total of 98 small and medium enterprises through questionnaires guide and 27 through Interview checklist and 15 through focus group discussion. Data was analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Science version 20, as well as coding of qualitative data. Both qualitative and quantitative data collected from the field were analyzed in the study. Majority of small and medium enterprises used the Whatsap, phone call and messaging to reach customers for their products. The media is simple for use and with efficient to reach customers who are familiar with their business so they use calling and messaging to alert them for the new products at shop. The use of WhatsApp through status views and phone call and messaging are the popular used means of marketing of business in Njombe Town Council during the COVID-19 break out. It is recommended that the Government under the Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority should impose laws and restriction to control misuse of the social media and increase privacy ownership of information to admins of any social media. The Government need to ensure policies, infrastructures and facilities are favourable to small and medium enterprises especially during the pandemic breakout.