ABSTRACT
The study determined the Influence of Social Media on the Growth of Small Scale Business in Edo State. Five research questions guided the study and two hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significant. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population of the study consisted of 115 registered small scale businesses in Edo South Senatorial District of Edo State. There was no sampling as the entire population was used as the sample of the study. Hence, a census of the entire population was used. The instrument used to collect data for this study was a structured questionnaire titled: “Influence of Social Media on the Growth of Small-Scale Business Questionnaire (ISMGSSB)”. The questionnaire was made up of two sections, A and B. Section A was made up of demographic data such as gender and years of experience while section B was used to elicit responses from the respondents which was made up of 41 item statements. The items were rated on a 4-point rating scale ranging from Very High Extent (VHE)=4, High Extent(HE)=3, Low Extent (LE)=2, and Very Low Extent (VLE)=1. To establish the validity of the instrument, the instrument was validated by the researcher’s supervisor and two experts from the Department of Vocational and Technical Education (Business Education) from the Faculty of Education, University of Benin, Benin City. To ascertain the reliability of the study, Cronbach alpha statistics was used. The instrument was administered to 20 small scale business owners in Edo Central Senatorial District. An alpha coefficient value of 0.76 was obtained. The Data collected from the respondents were analyzed using mean (𝑥̅), standard deviation (SD) and two sample independent t-test using Statistical Packages for the Social Science (SPSS). The findings generally showed that social media influenced the growth of small scale business in Edo State. The major findings of the study were as follows; Facebook influenced the growth of small-scale business to a high extent, twitter influence the growth of small-scale business to a high extent, instagram influenced the growth of small-scale business to a high extent, youtube influence the growth of small-scale business to a high extent, whatsApp influenced the growth of small-scale business to a high extent, there was no significant difference in the mean ratings between experienced and less experienced business owners on social media influencing the growth of small-scale business, and there was no significant difference in the mean ratings between male and female business owners on social media influencing the growth of small-scale business. Based on the findings of the study, it was concluded that social media influenced the growth of small-scale business in Edo State. This simply means that for small and medium scale businesses to thrive in this global economy meltdown, there is a need for business owners to engage vigorously in various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and WhatsApp.
