Abstract:
Social media are gaining popularity and are increasingly used in regular operations of many organizations, including Micro Enterprises (MEs). Several studies have thus developed interests on investigating the impact of social media in MEs. Unfortunately most of the existing studies either did not consider performance factor of MEs or were not done in the context of developing counties like Tanzania. It is on this ground that this study explored how social media influence the MEs’ performance in the context of customer’s base, sales growth, profit maximization, and brand enhancement. Specifically the study focused on identifying the most used social media by MEs; influence of social media to the performance of MEs; and how MEs use social media in their business process. Data were collected in Moshi, Tanzania from a representative sample of 90 MEs. The study adopted case study research design where structured questionnaires and interview were used to collect data. Findings depict that all else being equal, the use of social media enhance business performance. WhatsApp was found to be the most, preferred social
media by MEs, followed by Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. On the other hand, awareness, risks and insecurity of information, and costs was some of the observed challenges that hinder MEs from using social media. It was concluded that effective use of social media is an efficient tool for enhancing MEs performance. Among others, the study calls for further research on financial and marketing aspect of social media and relative involvement associated with the possible solution toward the challenges of social media
