TRADE PROJECT

TITLE : EFFECTIVENESS OF SOCIAL MEDIA TO THE

GROWTH OF HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY IN KITUI
COUNTY.

PRESENTED BY : WELDON KIPKURUI KEMBOI

INDEX NO : 20211511651

INSTITUTE : THE NYERI NATIONAL POLYTECHNIC

PRESENTED TO : KENYA NATIONAL EXAMINATION

COURSE CODE : 2705

NAME OF SUPERVISOR: MR JULIUS KIMANI

SERIES : NOVEMBER 2023

DATE : 22/05/2023
 DECLARATION

I declare that this project is my original work and has never been presented to any
Examination body for the award of any academic certification and with the approval of
my supervisor.

NAME : WELDON KIPKURUI KEMBOI

SIGNATURE : ……………………….

DATE : ………………………

SUPERVISOR : MR JULIUS
SIGNATURE : ………………………….
DATE : ……………………………

i
DEDICATION

I dedicate this project to my supervisor for being supportive throughout my study. I have
acquired a wealth of knowledge during my time at the Institution.

ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to acknowledge my supervisor Mr. Julius for the great support and
contribution towards achieving the success of this project.
Also I would like to acknowledge my parent for the financial support to me. I Also thank
my classmates for their assistance in one way or the other in.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents
CHAPTER THREE...............................................................................................................................................................18
3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY....................................................................................................................................18
3.1 INTRODUCTIONS.........................................................................................................................................................18
3.2 TARGET POPULATION...............................................................................................................................................18
3.3 SAMPLE SIZE AND SAMPLING.................................................................................................................................18
3.4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTATION.............................................................................................................18
3.5 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE...........................................................................................................................20
3.6 RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................20
CHAPTER FOUR.................................................................................................................................................................22
4.0 RESULTS........................................................................................................................................................................22
4.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS........................................................................................................................................22
4.2 HYPOTHESIS TESTS....................................................................................................................................................22
CHAPTER FIVE...................................................................................................................................................................26
5.0 CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................................................26
5.4 Implications for Policy, Theory, and Practice.................................................................................................................27
5.3 CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................................................27

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Significant variation of different group questionnaire ………………………………...11

Table 2: Analysis of variable results for bias future use and recommendation……………….....12

Table 3: Trustworthiness test…………………………………………………………………….12

Table 4: Test for future use………………………………………………………………………13

Table 5: Test for recommendation……………………………………………………………….1

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CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
Over the last few years, social media has demonstrated a huge growth and gained significant
attention in global- interest media.
As an example of the power that social media can do, the New York Times (March 2006) reported
that a popular blog endorsement recently helped one company to grow its sales from $ 100,000 to & 4
million. Advancement in technology has been a key part of recent growth in the potential to market
through social media.
Web 2.0 brought a great change in the online user behavior. In the beginning, websites were mainly
personal static and published by the website owner in a manner that only allowed visitors to view web
content. However in web 2.0 websites are dynamic, participating in the generation or development
of the content. This change in user behavior forces companies to use a new tool to communicate with
customers, namely social media.
Even though social media is relatively new media its worldwide popularity is undeniable social
media reached a penetration of 70%, 75% and 60% in USA, Europe and ASIA respectively. Today it
is not a good idea to rely only on traditional media for marketing, nor is it acceptable for companies
to just move offline sales materials to online.
Marketing is important aspect for any company involved in business. As such it is a
competitive world out there and social media can reach out many people accessing the
platform regularly. Communication is essential for any organization. Social network is the ideal
platform for communication that applies perfectly with marketing.

1.1 BACKGROUND OF STUDY

One area where social media has a significant potential is the hotel industry. This may be true in
regard to international markets where traditional medial may be impended by geographical or
cultural barriers. It is easy for key information to get lost in translation between customers and
managers. The most effective way to solve this cross – cultural gap has been direct response
marketing employed through the use of social media and online platforms.
Social media gives you an immediate doorway to your client permitting you to get immediate and
direct feedback from your customer, so you can serve them better. Instead of sending every client
one blanket message, social media allows two-way communications with potential customers on a
more personal level, or engages a group of consumers interested in a specific topic. This allows
customers to interact with your hotel.
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Hotels have implemented extensive marketing effort through Facebook, twitter and other forms of
social media to promote their services and products by offering discounts and specials to generate
potential buyers. Beside Facebook and twitter, YouTube, flicker and trip advisor are among social
media sites used in the hotel industry. Hotels mostly use YouTube to show photos of the hotels
interior. A bout 24% of hotels reply to customer review on trip advisor and 75% of these properties
provide personalize responses.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Even though blogging is considered to be a significant social media networking tool, today the
tourism industry realizes that blogs could have a negative impact as well as positive impact if not
managed carefully. As blogs becoming more and more popular as a social media tool some
implications develop. This implication consists of the increasing power of technology, increased
influence of communities and decreased influence of marketers.
It is true that blogs can be a powerful source of “word of mouth” but that can also be a source of
negative influence from unhappy customers
The industry needs to start looking at blogs in a more serious way. The publisher may need to
consider the question such as “what strategies need to be taken to deal with a new form of customers
communication.

1.3 PURPOSE OF STUDY

This is to investigate the effectiveness of social media in hospitality industry which is widely used
in the country. The research has positively and negatively effects regards on the study of the
environment. Also the purpose of the current study was to examine if customers perceive social
media- based sources of marketing information differently than traditional sources of internet -
based marketing information.
1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
a) To investigate the effectiveness of social media hotel industry
b) To allow you to reach nature and engage with your target audience.
c) To avoid industrial reputation due to negative use of social media.

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1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. To what extent does inclusion of a customer blog impacts perception of a hotel website?

2. To what extent does the nature of comments (positive or negative) with customer blog
impact perception of a hotel website?
3. How can we reduce negative use of social media?
4. What measures can be taken to maintain usage of social media in a hotel industry?
1.6 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Currently publicity in mass media for marketing is on increase but hotel industry is still typing to
cope up and sea the advantage from the latest trends on the intent.
Social media such as Facebook and twitter is growing daily but challenges faced by hotels is the
„how to‟ engage customers and how to lead them towards becoming a guest or share their
experience for the hotel within their virtual network. For the past decades the internet has
gradually changed to a stage where the research engines take control of website traffic, therefore,
business that jumped onto social media platforms earlier have enjoyed good results as they have
established their relationships and viral networks.
The research conducted will attempt to give an insight to the hospitality industry on the effects of
social media, furthermore to establish if social media is effective and recommendable and if so
provide an insight and suggest a plan for adopting social media as a platform for marketing purpose
in hospitality industry.
Value of Study
The results of this study will be used in the application of the marketing equities theory on the effect
of social media marketing on brand awareness. Business researchers and scholars will refer to
the findings of this research to help develop topics for further research in the future. Managers in the
hotel industry will also learn how they can utilize social media to improve brand awareness. This will
provide insights on how the hotel managers or digital marketers can use social media as a
marketing platform and also decide on which platform to use; Facebook, Instagram,
LinkedIn, YouTube or Twitter by hotels in Kisumu City. The study through social media reviews
which can be either positive or negative can help managers improve in the management of
the hotels. To the hotel industry, the study findings would help in making well informed decisions
towards achievement of vision 2030, The Big Four Agenda and sustainable goals in Kenya.
The managers of the hotels in Kenya would gain invaluable input to help them make swift changes
and conform with high competition in the crowded hotel industry
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 CHAPTER TWO
2.0 LITTERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
Social media refers to online conversational and participation of communities .These kind of
communities give members opportunities to publish , control, rank, produce and interact with online
content , actually , social media is a phrase for virtual worlds , news, book marketing sites and
opinion site.
Hotel brands are setting up shop on social media site like Facebook and twitter. Besides creating
their own account hotels and resorts are connecting into third party sites like‟‟ hotes.com‟‟ and trip
advisor to refresh their views of customers as well as the competitive landscape with more
information available to business and leisure voyage a like , potential consumers can find so many
deals and really find what they are looking without leaving their computers.

2.2 IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

The 2001 bursting of the web bubble created a shift on how information is communicated from being
static, website have become increasingly dynamic and interactive .According to comscore (2008)
social media had a massive penetration.
In Kitui county whose population is approximately 1.5 million people with a vibrant diverse
background , enjoys over one million visitors every year generating approximately ten million
revenue to the county .Social media has had a mixed response while some companies are proactive in
using social media marketing an important tool others are still a bite restrained in their approach to
implanting such tools, it was pointed out that some hotels have proposed embarking strategies
ranging from integration of e-marking plans with different functional areas of the organization to an
evolving dedicated e-marketing divisions. To assess how these where being used in Hong Kong,
Chan and Guillet (2011) studied various elements of social media including blogs and micro blogs,
social networking sites, virtual worlds, collaborative projects and contents community sites.
The authors selected 67 hotels based on their cooperation and brand and how they evaluated their
websites and their availability on social media twitter with 56.7% was the most used by hotel industry
followed closely by Facebook with 53.7% hotels possibly because micro blogging allows limited
world usage and functions. The biggest use of these websites is to advertise special discount being
offered by different hotels. YouTube, flicker and trip advisor follows twitter and Facebook in u

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by hotels at 38.9% and 29.3% respectively the primary function of YouTube 1% to show hotels
commercial properties and their unique characteristics while flicker is used for posting pictures of the
hotel interior designs. Hotels also rely on top advisor for customer feedback and 75% of the hotels in
Kitui County provide personalized responses to the reviews posted.
2.3 EFFECTIVE OF BLOGS VERSUS ONLINE MAGAZINES
With a rapidly growing number of internet users across the globe, social media is gaining popular as
a mass marketing medium. In 2007, it was noted four out of the top 10 entertainment sites were
blogs, OMG,TMZ and others. To assess the impact on marketing blogs, three scientist men studied
the popularity of blogs versus online magazines by evaluating the response received for the same
piece of work.
Specifically the scientist tested on how
1. Blog will generate greater social interaction than online magazine.
2. Brand altitude is higher after exposure to positive story about a blog compared to the
same article in an online magazine.
3. Purchase intention is higher after exposure to a positive story about a brand on a
blog compared to the same article in an online magazine.
4. The received brand relationship has greater effects on publicity of blogs effectiveness than
on magazines.
2.4 SOCIAL MEDIA PURCHASING POWER
The evaluation of social media has developed as a purchasing power particularly in Kitui
County. The article „role of social media in online travel search‟ suggests that there are more than
3 million Kenyans online. The chances of hotels to engages in social media is higher people always
wanted to be connected and the internet gives them so many opportunities which were not there
before.
Now days hotels in Kitui county are trying to use social media for brand and direct contact with their
customers. The invention of internet connected mobile derived broad brand connections are helping
Kenyans evolve in social media.
The new zealed zolo social media report revealed that 40% respondents have published opinions
specifically about products, services and brands while two millions Kenyans wanted their fellow
internet users „opinion and information about products services and brands. The most important thing
37% declared that they made a purchase based on the use of online opinions. For marketers Kitui
County interaction with online communication is going to raise in the coming years since social

10
media plays an important role in decision making. Furthermore the report demonstrated how social
media is having in products and services purchasing

2.5 THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS A BRAND TOOL

Hotel has recognized the power of blogging to promote the cost effectiveness of booking travel
independently rather than buying the package deal.
People in Kitui County prefer package deals so hotels partner with hotel blogger and use him as it
its spokesman in Kitui. Hotekls.com says that after blogger goes to a destination and demonstrates
the benefits of buying flights and hotels separately and the good deals you can get, they had about a
million hits on YouTube for a series called unpacking

2.6 BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

A study conducted by two seniors at the Cornell school of hotel administration explained that the
guest who travel frequently place their emphasis on reviews by consumers more so than the rating
provided by other organizations. It is also surprising to find that people where likely to post both
favorable and unfavorable reviews on hospitality industry. It also stated that 57% of customers will
research for online reviews before making a purchaser of a product on service.
With growing trends towards social media marketing it is now reflected as an item in some marketing
budgets. These individuals in hospitality should always keep in mind the benefits of social
media with the advancement of technology, social media is and will be very much part of our daily
lives.
Online marketing can take place in several media platforms, and that should be taken into
consideration for marketing strategy of a hotel. Social media tools such as twitter, YouTube,
Facebook and corporation blogs should be used if necessary.
2.7 SOCIAL MEDIAL NETWORKS CONTRIBUTION.
According to Burson- marteller, fortune global, social media study 2010, majority of global
companies adopt a minimum of one source of related social media platform. To a certain extent
79% of the top 100 companies in the globe are found to be applying at least one social media
platform which comprises of facer book, twitter and cooperate blogs.
2.8 NEGATIVE SIDE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Even though blogging is considered to be a significant social networking tool today tourism industry
realizes that blogs could have a negative impact as well as positive impact if not managed effectively.

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Some implications may develop. This implication consists of the increasing power of technology
influence of communities and decrease influences of marketers.

The power of Social Media as a Branding Tool

Hotels.com has recognized the power of blogging to promote the costeffectiveness of booking travel
independently rather than buying the package deal. People in Brazil still prefer package deals, so the
company partnered with popular travel blogger Ricardo Freiré and used him as its spokesperson in
Brazil. Hotel.com says that after Ricardo goes to a destination and demonstrates the benefits of buying
flights and hotel separately and the good deals you can get, they had about a million hits on YouTube
for a series called Unpacking (Smith, 2011). Hotels.com's sister company Trip Advisor (both owned
by Expédia) is the world’s largest travel community, visited by 32 million users every month. It began
using social media in 2007 when it launched its Facebook application “Cities I've Visited” and an
interactive travel map that has been used by 30 million people worldwide. In 2010, it built on this
demand, using the application Facebook Connect on the Trip Advisor sites to deliver Trip Advisor
Trip Friends. By connecting Trip Advisor and Facebook accounts the person can use his/her social
network to see which friends have been to each city and could offer a recommendation or share a
review. For more than 10 years, Trip Advisor has been providing travel tips and advice from the
knowledge of the travelers. Social media has added opportunity find ways to improve that advice with
the knowledge of friends and techniques to make receiving and sharing that advice even easier (Smith,
2011).
The Impact of Social Media Marketing The 2001 bursting of the web bubble caused a massive shift in
how information is communicated. From being static, information boards, websites have become
increasingly dynamic and interactive. According to comScore (2008, 2009a, 2009b), social media had
a massive penetration of 70.2% in the US, 74.6% in Europe and 60.6% in Asia among internet users
and thus cannot be ignored as a marketing tool. In Hong Kong a region whose 29.5 million visitors in
2008 generated revenue of approximately $159 billion (Hong Kong Tourism Board, 2008), social
media marketing has had a mixed response (Chan & Guillet, 2011). While some companies are
proactive Social Media and Hotel Industry 14 in using social media as a marketing tool, others are still
a bit restrained in their approach to implementing such tools. Chan and Guillet (2011) pointed out that
several e-marketing strategies have been proposed by industry experts ranging from integration of e
marketing plans with different functional areas of the organization, to an ever evolving, dedicated e-
marketing division. To assess how these were being used in Hong Kong, Chan and Guillet (2011)
12
studied various elements of social media including blogs and micro blogs, social networking sites,
virtual worlds, collaborative projects, and content community sites.

Social Media and Traditional Media

The one point that differentiates social media from traditional media is user participation. Like
traditional media social media serves as a vehicle to reach out to and inform consumers; however it is
only social media that allows consumers to participate and propagate their views. According to the
Forrester Research on social media approximately half of adults who go online take part in social
networking. This number has a significant implication on businesses who want access to data rich
information. Marketing companies use customized data mining software that enable them to keep a
track of consumer behavior, spending pattern and satisfaction ratings. These findings are used to
measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns in terms of ROI and other performance indicators
(Kasavana, 2008).
Social Media & Hospitality Industry
The parameters of social networking websites possess several unique implications for the hospitality
industry including guests, staff, and management. These sites provide a platform for a rating system
that can be used to generate, monitor, and evaluate reputation and image of the
business. Online consumer-generated content is perceived as highly credible and in fact, more so than
information attributed to the hospitality entity (Starkov & Mechoso, 2008). Hospitality company
participation in online social networking has been shown to be a cost-effective means for interaction
and engagement with potential clients. Participation in these websites provides businesses with direct
access to active users without the need to adding any additional hardware, or software. A social
networking site that is easily accessible, straightforward, and appealing enables participants to become
engaged in unique ways. It comes as no surprise that many hotels, restaurants and travel business have
entered the social network space. Hospitality businesses are proactively interacting with their
customers by coming up with innovative customized solutions and much responsive and prompt
customer service (Kasavana, Nusair, & Teodosic, 2010).Online consumer reviews play a big part in
the choice of hotel and travel consumers make today.
With a rise in the number of websites (like Yelp, TripAdvisor and social networking sites such as
Facebook, MySpace, etc.) that give potential consumers an opportunity to look up reviews by other
real consumers, the way information is perceived today has changed considerably. Making a unique
social network that allows guests to create a profile and share opinions, feelings, stories, photos, etc.
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 can be a source of competitive advantage or disadvantage. If a guest decides to participate in an online
network, shares a testimonial or recounts an experience or downloads content, others in the network
are likely to be affected by the opinion of the postings. More so than the content contained at a
company specific or industry related web site (Green, 2009). Another networking and communication
tool that has become popular is blogging. The Travel and Tourism Industry today is faced with
consequences that blogs have not only positive impacts but also negative ones, if not managed
properly (Thevenot, 2007). Any individual can upload content in the form of images, audio or video
for others to respond and comment, which forms the basis of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 has given popularity
to user generated content (UGC) where information is gathered from different online sources all of
which collaborate to form the final source (Cox, Burgess, Sellitto, & Buultjens 2009). An effective
means to benefit from this trend is to carefully follow the comments that are posted relating to your
business. Research has proven that hotels that engage their customers via social media get their
customers to spend more, have higher repeat clientele, and get more referrals from their guests.
However good, bad, or ugly, it is vital that no comment goes unnoticed because for every benefit a
hotel rakes in with positive feedback, suggestions and tracking consumers it can be on the receiving
end of unfair criticism and negative publicity if it leaves important issues unaddressed (Kasavana,
2008).

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing (SMM) is identified as the process of creating awareness of products on
social media platforms. It is a type of online marketing that employs social media networks to
accomplish branding targets Assaad and Gómez (2011). According to Couldry (2012) defines
social media marketing as a type of marketing that employs networking websites to market
products and services It entails sharing of information such as articles, photos, and videos for
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing (SMM) is identified as the process of creating awareness of products on social
media platforms. It is a type of online marketing that employs social media networks to accomplish
branding targets Assaad and Gómez (2011). According to Couldry (2012) defines social media
marketing as a type of marketing that employs networking websites to market products and
services It entails sharing of information such as articles, photos, and videos for marketing, in
addition to paid social media advertising. By using social media plat forms companies can
achieve targets such as customer relationship management, brand building sales, and public relations.
14
By utilizing social media marketing, companies can introduce social media monitoring, which casts
back the interpretation and collection of content. The content can include what users
publish, post or share on the Internet, including videos, audio files, data, photos, images, texts,
and memes. A study by Razak (2015) focused on Facebook, Instagram and twitter
platforms on brand awareness where he found out that the three platforms were commonly used by
most firms to market their brands. This study focuses on these three platforms in a different
context todetermine effect of Facebook, Instagram and twitter on brand awareness. Globally, social
mediatools such as Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook projected online engagement in
termsof average consumed time and number of active users. It is widely acknowledged that Facebookis
now the most used social media network platform in the current world. Approximately, 2.32billion
people actively use Facebook monthly by 2018 Oz, Zheng, and Chen (2018). They state that the
average Facebook user has 130 followers and creates 20 pieces of content each week; similarly, those
who are logged onto Facebook depleted over 700 billion minutes in a month. It is approximated that
almost 200 million active people are using Facebook through their phones. Demographically,
Facebook offers a balance in terms of gender, income and educational diversity making it a
good target for businesses. Additionally, most Facebook users make it a great place for any business
that is trying to attract these types of users thus suitable for social media marketing Kaplan (2012).
Another upcoming social media platform is Twitter, which was founded in March 2006Chang(2010).
This platform involves users sharing small pieces of messages with their followers, also known as
“tweets". According to Namiot (2015), Twitter uses Short Message Service (SMS) as its website
interface and mobile device application software. He further states that by July 2018,Twitter had
around 800 million users. 156 million messages were sent each day, and the rate of users improves by
approximately 350,000 daily. Twitter has come up with its own "Twitter for business" to help in
connecting customers to businesses. Instagram media networking service that uses high definition
images and video sharing. Singhaffirms this mobile application is operated by Facebook. Since its
inception in 2010, the plat formhas soared in popularity, especially among millennials. There are
almost 150 million active users monthly on the networks who share videos and photos from mobile
phones. Instagram can be used by businesses to encourage customers to share photos and post
their content or of them connecting with their products or services. Most businesses use Instagram
in conjunction with other social media-related platforms, automatically sharing Instagram images to
Facebook and Twitter.
Brand Awareness

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Brand awareness is the level of customers' consciousness on particular goods and services in the
market Macdonald and Sharp (2003). A study by Naveen (2005) identified brand awareness as overall
measure of the performance of a certain brand in the market. There are two categories of brand
awareness, aided awareness which arises when the customer is given the list of brand names and
understands a certain brand in the question and main awareness which arise when the
brand name is recollected because the customer relates the brand with a certain
business provider. This is the brand recall dimension which forms the basis of our study.When brand
awareness is built, market share can be increased. According to Keller(1993)advertising
and aggressive marketing of products and services are important factors inimproving brand
awareness and transforming awareness into market share. Brand awarenessdoes not have
monetary value in itself but has a marketing effort that propels progressive sales ofa service or a
product. Brand awareness can be measured using several methods, includingsurveys, keeping
an eye on website traffic over time and also search volume that tells one howoften people search for a
brand.
Social Media Marketing and Brand Awareness
A descriptive study by Bankole (2012) on interrelation between business growth and social
media marketing found out that many companies in India had embraced social media plat forms for
advertising their business. Big brands embraced social media sites to help them in increasing brand
awareness. A strong interrelation between social media marketing and business growth can be
deduced. A study by Chi (2011) on the extent of use of social media as a marketing tool found out that
people who extensively used social media platforms perceived advertising on social media as
best way of product branding unlike depending on visual advertisements. This suggested
that user inducement for networking could play a major role in expressing consumer reviews to social
media marketing. A study by Dutta (2010) on the effect of Facebook on the brand perception
of products in European companies established that high luxurious companies had built
relationships through Facebook to market their products. He concluded that some celebrities with
mass followings on Facebook were also paid to market the brands. A descriptive study by Chu
(2011) found that Facebook users maintained a good brand recognition habits. Users who recognized
products and services advertised were more likely to link up in a brand or a retailer’s Facebook group
to get advertisement messages. He concluded that there was link that existed between engagement
ingroup pages and consumers' use of social media sites. The association between engagements
with group applications and consumers’ use of social media contributes to the effectiveness andrate of
marketing, specifically on Facebook. A study by Haslam (2017) on age and attitude in social
16
 media found out that users who were between the age brackets of 18-28 had strong attitude
towards video, blogs and brand channels. The users claimed that the advertisements on the social sites
were informative, eye-catching and amusing. This showed positive attitude towards age on social
media marketing. A cross sectional study by Gichunge (2018) on connections between social media
marketing and organizational performance. A methodology of this review survey design was
embraced. The review revealed that adverts organization with good showcasing systems was
improving on brand perception. A descriptive study by Bankole (2012) on the small
microenterprise growth was done focused on small enterprises without a focus on age orientation. His
outcome showed that social media is widely used for marketing. He also established a strong
connection between performance and social media marketing. A study by Gichunge (2018) on
product perception examined the degree to which the twitter platform improved product
perception to its potential customers. He established the adoption of Twitter as a social marketing
strategy for organizational performance a study involving 139companies. A descriptive study by
Owino et al. (2016) on the social media effect of marketing on small enterprises growth in Nairobi
county found out that these platforms have positive results on sales revenue and several
customers. He recommended that micro-enterprises should adopt the use of various platforms in
business to achieve desired levels of performance. A longitudinal study by Hutter (2013) on
social media activities focused on car assembly Facebook book fan page and its interaction
strategy with its users and how all that affect brand
awareness of its products. The survey target population involved the car assembly Facebook fan page
users focusing on customer views on the content from the car assembly firm. The data from the study
was analyzed using SPSS version 19 and the findings showed that user’s engagement with the page
had a positive effect on brand awareness. Also, the findings from the research showed that
annoyance of fan page users due to overload messages and leads to negative effect on brand
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing (SMM) is identified as the process of creating awareness of products on
social media platforms. It is a type of online marketing that employs social media networks to
accomplish branding targets Assaad and Gómez (2011). According to Couldry (2012) defines
social media marketing as a type of marketing that employs networking websites to market
products and services It entails sharing of information such as articles, photos, and videos for

17
CHAPTER THREE

3.0 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Methodology This research paper was compiled by comparing a variety of research from academic
journal articles and other sources of research-intensive literature.

3.1 INTRODUCTIONS
This chapter consist of methods which were used to collect data from the respondent. Among the
aspects of research methodology discussed are the study area, target population research design,
sample size, research instruments and data collection.

3.2 TARGET POPULATION

The target population selected for this study is the average middle class from Kitui County. The
accessible population consisted of employees from south eastern Kenya University (SEKU) which is
located in Kitui Central. Kitui County has approximately a population of about two million
residents. About 60% of its population consists of youth

3.3 SAMPLE SIZE AND SAMPLING

Participants and sampling
Participants in the study consisted of young and old who received an invitation to participate. The
enter accessible population were randomly sampled and assigned to the three survey groups with each
group receiving a different website to review before completing the survey (hotel website, positive
blog and mixed blog). The results was a total sample of 100,000 responses. The hotel websites group
consisted of 55,000 respondents. The positive blog group was a total of 25000. The mixed group
consisted 20,000 respondents.

3.4 DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTATION

There were three segments for the composed survey a demographic section, a perception of bias and
trustworthiness section and also a like hood of future use or referral to a friend section. The
demographic section consisted of five related question to gender ,age, education, number of family
numbers and income factors influencing perception consisted five questions(price,
cleanliness, location convenience previous experience and amenities.
Perception of bias and trustworthiness section and the like hood of future referral to a friend section
both considered of two questions each.

18
They both scored 5 point rating scale. The researcher developed the questionnaire and then it
was pilot tested on several university students to ensure clarity. Minor changes were made to the
questionnaires based on the resulting feedback.

19
3.5 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE
After receiving approval the researcher acquired employees emails from Kitui assessment office.
The questionnaire was emailed to three different randomly assigned groups, with an invitation to
participate in the study. Although the content of the presented website was not real (fictious)
participants were not told that the hotel and blogs were fabricated.
The data was collected for 5 days after sending the emails. This process gave response rate results
of about 13%

3.6 RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA ANALYSIS

This descriptive project utilized the survey techniques to examine research questions and
associated hypothesis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine the relationship
between the nature of social media website only (positive blog and mixed blog) and participant‟s
perceptions towards the provided information and hotel. Specifically, items related to
demographic section, a perception of bias and trustworthiness all these groups were compared.
The other item which was about price, amenities location cleanliness and previous was not
analyzed due to a formatting error that occurred during creation of online survey. The clarity
and validity of that item was compromised and the decision was made to exclude it from the
analysis. Hypothesis tests were judged to be significant when probability was < 0.5
Population of the Study
According to (Cooper & Schindler, 2006) the study population is a cluster of people who form the
constituency to which research findings will be generalized. In this case, the target population is 53
hotels (listed as per appendix 2) which offer accommodation services as their main selling point.
The decision to focus on hotels in the city in general rather than narrowing them down to as pecific
classification is informed by the fact that Kisumu’s hotel industry is not as vibrant as those of
Nairobi or Mombasa. This means that the number of hotels that can be classified as three-
star and above is too negligible to provide a comprehensive study population.
Data collection
In this research, primary data was used. Structured questionnaires were utilized to collect the
data from the 53 selected hotels in Kisumu city. Structured questionnaires are rigid and
restrictrespondents’ answers to the questions provided. The questionnaire was conducted through
socialmedia pages, walk-ins or email where applicable. The questionnaire was divided into three
parts;the first part covered demographics of respondents, the second focused on determining
socialmedia sites that were used by hotels in Kisumu and the third covered the social media effects
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of brand awareness in hotels in Kisumu city. The respondents who participated were
digital marketing managers and reservation managers of the 53 selected hotels in Kisumu city.
Data Analysi
Nardi (2018)describes data analysis as the rationalization and elucidation of views, statistics, and
perspectives gathered to make them relevant to the context of a study. In this instance, data was
analyzed by the first proofreading and revising questionnaire outcomes to ascertain faultlessness
and regularity. Mistakes and omissions were also checked and then coding done. A descriptive
statistic was used to analyze data from the questionnaire. Data was presented in tables and
piecharts. The independent variables in this research were social media tools which include
Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Likert-scale was used to access how the respondents
agree with particular opinions and show to what extent they agree or disagree with a certain
statement. Forevery question that uses the Likert scale, five responses were looked at and the
numerical scoregiven to each of the questions as follow.
1 = Strongly Disagree
2 = Disagree
3 = Neutral
4 = Agree
5 = Strongly Agree

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CHAPTER FOUR
Introduction
This chapter presents analysis, findings and discussions aided by the research
objectives presented in chapter one. Study findings on descriptive statistics were presented in
percentages, frequency distribution, mean and standard deviation focusing on the effect of
social media marketing on brand awareness of hotels in Kisumu city
Response rate
Questionnaires received from the field were sorted out and coded. Out of the 53 selected hotelsfor
the study which included all hotels listed in Tourism Regulatory Authority in Kisumu City 1hotel
did not have an active websites and social media pages while 5 of them were sent backhaving not
been satisfactorily filled. A study by Dean (2012), account for more than 70%response
rate is sufficient to facilitate data analysis.

4.0 RESULTS

4.1 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

Examining means and standards is useful in describing the general nature of responses to
the questions pertaining to the research hypothesis. Survey questions pertaining to the biased
nature of social media content, the trustworthiness of media content, the likelihood of staying at
the profiled hotel and the likelihood of recommending the hotel to a friend were directly related to
the search hypothesis in the study. In regard to bias, the website group only reported the strongest
perception of bias on a 1 to 5 rating scale (5 indicating agreements). The mixed blog group
had a mean of 3 whereas the positive blog group had the lowest bias rating 2.86.
When responding to the statement „‟I trust the information presented in the website,‟‟ the
most favorably scored group was the hotel website followed by mixed blog and then
positive blog. Questions pertaining to whether or not respondents would recommend the hotel for
a friend, the most favorably scored group was the hotel website, followed by mixed blog and then
positive blog.

4.2 HYPOTHESIS TESTS

To determine if the comparisons were significant, Analysis of variance was used to compare the
three groups on each of the four questions. The results indicated did not differ significantly in
regard to ratings of biased content. There was a significant difference between groups on
trustworthiness item. Scheffe‟s test indicated that the website group provided a trustworthiness
rating that was higher than the positive blog group. The mixed blog group was not significantly
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different from either of the two group On the intention to stay question, there was a significant
different between groups. There was also a different between groups for recommendation to friend
question.
Table 1
Significant variation of different group questionnaire

VARIABLE MEAN STD DEVIATION NUMBER

Bias:

Hotel site only 3.54 1.35 35

Blog Positive
Blog mixed
Trustworthiness’:

Hotel site only 2.29 0.89 35

Blog positive
Blog mixed
Future use: 2.52 1.19 25

Hotel site only 3.29 1.28 35

Blog positive
Blog mixed
Recommended 20.8 1.22 25
Hotel site only
Blog positive 3.03 1.31 35
Blog mixed

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 Table 2
Analysis of variable results for bias future use and recommendation
SOURCE SS DF BIAS MS F P
Between G. 8.06 2 4.03 2.50 0.09
Within G. 153.32 95 1.61 - -
Total 161.38 97

Trustworthiness
Between G. 8.17 2 4.38 4.09 0.22
Within G. 101.72 95 1.07
Total 162.49 97

recommendation
Between G. 31.79 2 15.89 13.09 40.01
Within G. 115.31 95 1.21
Total 147.10 97

Table 3Trustworthiness test

Paired group Mean differences Standard error p
Hotel positive blog 0.76 0.27 0.22
Hotel negative blog 0.41 0.24 233
Negative – positive 0.37 0.27 429

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 Table 4
Test for future use

Paired groups Mean difference Std. error p

Hotel positive blog 0.15 0.31 0.22
Hotel negative blog 1.09 0.28 0.01
Positive + negative blog - 0.51 0.30 986

Table 5
Test for recommendation
Paired groups Mean difference Std. error p
Hotel only positive blog 1.23 0.28 < 0.001
Hotel negative blog 1.16 0.26 < 0.001
Positive + negative blog 0.07 0.28 0.971

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CHAPTER FIVE
Introduction
This chapter summarizes the major findings of the study, conclusions, limitations of the studyand
recommendations for further research. The objective of the study was to investigate theeffect
of social media marketing on brand awareness of hotels in Kisumu city

5.0 CONCLUSION
The overall findings of this study indicates that the “hotel website” group reported the strongest
perception of bios with a mean of 3.54, followed by the mixed blog group with a mean of 3.00, and
the positive group had the lowest bias rating mean of 2.86.For the statement “I trust the information
presented in this website”, the hotel website scored the most fooled by the mixed blog and then the
positive blog. This results does not support the hypothesis “A traveler is more likely to trust a
positive story from the blog” the finding of this study suggest that blogs have a potential negative
impact on the perceptions, even when the statement is positive.
Also, the finding did not support the hypothesis” website viewers will indicate less willingness to
stay in a hotel after exposure to a negative story about it in a blog” since the most favorable scored
group was the hotel website, findings ,perhaps the participants didn‟t trust the blog because of their
quality and appearance .
For the question about recommending the hotel to a friend, the hotel website scored the most
followed by blog mixed and then blog positive.it appears like customers don‟t really trust a
positive story on the website, they might think it could be manipulated by the hotel, but again, it
could be the quality of the blogs that influenced the participants responses.
The results from this study are quiet interesting when compared to previous research. It was found in
(2007) that any opinions expressed in a blog are perceived as personal and hence are adopted more
openly. But in the present research the participants did not trust the positive reviews. Also the
results of this study did not match with the finding of xiang and Gretzel (2010) who found that 37%
of New Zealanders declared that they made a purchase based on these online opinions specifically
about products, services and brands, while nearly two million New Zealanders wanted their follow
internet users opinion and information about products and services. In contrast with this study,
the participants did not completely trust the review in the blogs they were perceived with a
suspicious min in this case

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5.4 Implications for Policy, Theory, and Practice
Firstly, hotels should pursue social media marketing to increase brand awareness of brands as itis
cheaper and faster. Hotels should assign a marketing manager to do marketing activities asthey are
time consuming. The businesses should incorporate internet-based strategies in theirstrategic
plans as is best ways of sourcing customers and establishing a long-lasting relationshipwith its users.
Secondly, social media platforms can be used to carry out customer satisfaction surveys, ask Users
which services they would like to see improved or introduced, get feedback and inform them of
promotional activities like price cuts and discount offerings. Given this, the hotel industry can
perform better than before. The findings from the study will particularly be useful in the
application of social media marketing theory on increasing brand awareness. Scholars and
business researchers will also benefit from this study as they could use it in further related research.
This study will be of most help to the marketing managers of the hotels as it will bring on the most
reliable sites and most common features in each platform which could increase brand
awareness. They will also appreciate the positives and negative effects associated with
social media marketing on improving brand awareness.

5.3 CONCLUSION
According to the study and the literature reviews customers are likely to trust a hotel website if its
design is attractive and professional. The travelers could be very suspicions of reviews posted in
unknown blogs (positive or mixed) also people tend to trust negative reviews more than positive
ones. Studies show that people like to know internet users opinion and information about products,
services and brands, especially from famous blogs and website like trip advisor

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