the main objective of the study. It started by pointing out the research objective of this study, followed by the explanation of response rate of the respondents and their business profiles, then analysis and discussion of the study results. 6.6.1. The population, respondents’ business profile, and response rate The population used for this study comprised of small businesses in the hospitality sector, specifically restaurants located in the Cape Metropole, in Cape Town, South Africa. A target sample of 100 small businesses was chosen to achieve this goal, 180 questionnaires were personally distributed to the sample, using a purposive sampling method. Of those distributed, 95 usable questionnaires were returned, resulting in a response rate of 52.7%.This was above the 50% response rate of similar studies conducted in the Cape Metropole (Maduekwe & Kamala 2016:186).
In all, 63.3% respondents were managers and 33.7% were owners of the business, 13.7% of the respondents had been in that positions for less than one year, while 42.1% had been in their positions for 1-5 years, while 29.5% had six to ten years’ experience in the afore-mentioned position, and 14.7% had more than ten years’ experience in their positions. The respondents’ qualification profile showed that 42.1% had a doctorate degree, a master’s degree, a bachelor’s degree or a diploma. Of those qualifications, 38.9% were business/ marketing related. Given this profile, the respondents were expected to have expert knowledge on the business operation, mainly marketing.
The respondents’ profile in the hospitality sector consisted of 49.5% in fast food restaurants, 20% in pubs, while 5.3% operated in pizzerias, 5.3% in seafood restaurants and 20% in coffee shops. This confirmed that the respondents sampled were from the hospitality sector, specifically restaurants, which was appropriate to the focus of the survey. Concerning the size of the sampled businesses, 30.5% were micro-enterprises (with 1 - 5 employees), while 65.3% very small enterprises (with 6 - 20 employees) and only 4.2% were small enterprises (with 21 - 50 employees). Therefore the respondents participating in this study were all from small businesses (SMMEs), which was the target identified for the study.
81
6.6.2 THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM USED BY SMALL BUSINESSES 6.6.2.1 Focus on social media sites used in this study
Concerning the use of social media sites by respondents, the results revealed that 92.6% of the respondents used social media, while 7.4% did not use social media sites. Amongst those who used social media marketing very frequently, 58.9% used Facebook, while 27.5% used Twitter, followed by 82.3% who used WhatsApp, and 76% respondents used other marketing tactics, such as SMS, flyers, word of mouth advertising and e-mails. This indicates that Facebook and WhatsApp have a more viable marketing potential than Twitter. It can be said therefore that SMMEs (restaurants) in the Cape Metropole used social media platforms to support their businesses. This result affirms the principal research objective of this study as well as echoes that of Hsu and Ting (2013) that revealed social media platforms were used in hospitality industry, for communication to potential customers.
6.6.2.2 Social media use and the purpose of this study
With regard to the purpose for which social media was frequently used, the results revealed that 67% respondents used the platform to inform their clients about business promotions, followed by 58.8% who used it for new product marketing, while 77.3% used the platform to socialise with clients and 65.2% to increase customer loyalty, with the highest percentage being used for socialising. Earlier the researcher had stated that SMMEs in Cape Metrople were perceived to be failing, due in part to their lack off effective use of social media platforms. In short, given that SMMEs in Cape Metropole lack conventional marketing skills, one is inspired to argue that the use of social media for improvements in business was gaining grounds albeit not quite strategically. Although Lekhanya (2013) found an almost similar scenario, the researcher argues further that if social media use is channelled towards strategic marketing, it will significantly boost small business marketing capabilities. Such strategic marketing options may include posting updates of menus and new menus as well as other attractions.
6.6.3 Perception of the effectiveness of the use of social media for marketing
Regarding the effectiveness of social media platform for the growth of small business, the results revealed that WhatsApp was perceived to be the most
82
effective platform (84.8%) of the three sites, followed by Facebook (61.7%) and Twitter being regarded as the least effective (36%).
This confirmed that the platforms were effective for marketing. When respondents were asked whether they measured effectiveness, (84.9%) confirmed that they did, while 15.1% did not. Those who did measure effectiveness, included some who only used the fans/follower/like feature (51.6%) 48.4% did not use those features or any other way of measuring the effectiveness of their social media marketing. Some respondents (14%) indicated that they used the “retweet” function but most (86%) did not use that. The “comments” function was used by 69.6% respondents to measure effectiveness while 30.4% did not use that. While 78.5% used the “share of conversation” to measure effectiveness, 21.5% did not use that. “Referral” was used by 27.5% of respondents, but 72.5% did not use that function to measure the effectiveness of their marketing. Therefore “share of conversation” on the platform proved to be the best mechanism to measure effectiveness of the social media marketing process. These findings suggested that social media platforms are perceived to be somewhat effective tool when used for marketing purpose, which validates the findings of the second primary objective of this study. The finding is also in agreement with the study of Seth (2012) who that found 75% of the respondents affirmed their use of social media platforms for reservation booking, which raised their profit to 81%.
6.6.4 Frequency of use of social media for the growth of the business As was the case with how often businesses used social media platform for the growth of the business, the results revealed that 87.5% of the sampled small businesses used social media for marketing on a daily basis, followed by 66.6% who used weekly marketing feeds on the platform. Some 65.5% of the respondents used hourly social media promotion, and 36.4% used the service only on monthly basis. These results indicated that the respondents who used the platform very often, on a daily basis, achieved a better result for the growth of their businesses. It can therefore be assumed that probably frequent usage of the platforms for marketing will increase business growth pointing at primary objective three of this study. The result agrees with that of Jurisova (2013) who stated that 62% of the respondents affirmed they took between six to twenty hours on social media marketing feed weekly to achieve business goals.
83
6.6.5 Factor that could inhibit small business from using social media With respect to the factors that inhibit small business from using social media, there were discrepancies in the results amongst those who strongly agreed. A lack of internet facilities such as smart phone or computer internet was the most frequently cited negative factor, (37.3%), followed by respondents who did not know the capabilities the platform could offer (25.8%), and those who were unaware of the use of social media platforms for marketing (22.6%). Some respondents cited their lack of marketing strategies (24.7%) and the smallest number replied that they had no interest in social media (15.7%). This result to some extent agrees with Ndlovo (2010) and Boateng (2012) who stated that 54% of respondents agreed that a lack of knowledge, training, advice and support were the factors responsible for their inability to adopt e-marketing thus giving answer to research objective four.
6.7 THE SIGNIFICANCE AND THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE STUDY