SOCIAL MEDIA NETWORKING OF MICRO ENTREPRENEURS AND PERFORMANCE OF AGENT BANKS

Abstract

There is a large body of literature in social media, agent banking and entrepreneurship in disparate and fragmented forms. The nexus between social media platforms for entrepreneurial networking and performance in the context of agent banking remains underexplored. To address this knowledge gap, this paper investigates social media platforms for networking by micro entrepreneurs and performance of agent banks in Nigeria. Analytic descriptive survey design is adopted in the study while a sample of 150 agent banks are selected by employing simple random and cluster sampling procedures. Data were collected from self reports of micro entrepreneurs of agent banks with the use of questionnaire. Data collected were analysed with frequency counts, percentage distribution, logistic regression and analysis of variance. The results demonstrated that micro entrepreneurs of agent banks utilize social media platforms to initiate formal and informal ties to improve business performance. The paper concludes that quite a number of micro entrepreneur agents of banks network with social media platforms but some bank agents do not network with a view to establishing formal and informal ties for business purposes.