Role of Social Media Platforms in Economic Empowerment of Women in Ilaro, Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study spotlights the roles of Social Media Platforms in the economic development of women in Ogun State using the women in Ilaro; Yewa South Local Government as a study. Because the population used for this study is scattered all over Ilaro, cluster sampling technique was used in selecting them. The respondents who were selected randomly were used to study the role of social media platforms in the economic empowerment of women. The women were engaged in petty trading, fashion designing, salons and hairdressing, catering services, and operation of business centres. The study was premised on the framework of two theories - the Uses and Gratification Theory and the Media Dependency Theory. The study examined the effect of illiteracy on the use of ICT applications (social media); and the use of social media by women to improve their economic status. The descriptive research design was adopted for the study, and a structured questionnaire was used to elicit relevant information from the respondents. Data collected were subjected to statistical analysis (descriptive statistics and correlational analysis) using the SPSS and Microsoft Excel application packages. The results indicated that social media platforms could be used to raise the public’s awareness of goods and services, boosting businesses, and could improve women’s economic status. Facebook was used more frequently than four other platforms investigated. The order of decreasing use (frequency) of the social media platforms by the women was Facebook (41%), WhatsApp (27%), YouTube (13%), Instagram (12%), and LinkedIn (7%). The disparity in the use pattern of social media platforms might be connected with the characteristic features, capabilities, ease of use, complexities of the application commands, and user’s knowledge of the application. It is therefore advocated that promotion of the use of other social media platforms other than Facebook may require educating the women on the benefits of using the applications for economic empowerment.