Role of Social Media Marketing Technologies in the Growth of Small Online Businesses in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study examines the role of social media marketing technologies in the growth of small online businesses in Bangladesh. The study focuses on Facebook Marketing, Instagram Marketing, TikTok Marketing, and WhatsApp Business, while also considering Customer Engagement and Brand Awareness as supporting constructs. A quantitative approach was used through a structured questionnaire containing five-point Likert-scale items. The final dataset contained 149 valid responses from owners, managers, and owner-managers of online businesses. Descriptive analysis indicates moderate average perceptions across the measured constructs, with Customer Engagement receiving the highest mean score (M = 3.11) and Business Growth the lowest (M = 2.89). Pearson correlation showed a small positive relationship between Instagram Marketing and Business Growth (r = .169, p = .039), while Customer Engagement showed a small negative relationship with Business Growth (r = -.167, p = .041). In the primary multiple regression model, Facebook Marketing, Instagram Marketing, TikTok Marketing, and WhatsApp Business jointly explained 5.9% of the variance in Business Growth (R² = .059; adjusted R² = .033), and the overall model was not statistically significant at the 5% level (F = 2.254, p = .066). Instagram Marketing was the only predictor reaching conventional statistical significance (B = .173, p = .016). Reliability analysis produced low Cronbach’s alpha values across the constructs, indicating that the measurement results should be interpreted cautiously. The study therefore provides an exploratory assessment of social media marketing and highlights the need for stronger measurement design and larger samples in future research.