Abstract
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are considered the backbone of a country’s development and their contribution to job creation is undeniable. Mainly as a result of their contribution to the overall development, SMEs in developing countries such as Namibia have to fully explore the marketing opportunities available on the social media sphere. However, this has been a challenge due to the lack of locally produced and published research within the social media discourse. In order to determine how SMEs in Namibia use Facebook to co-create/collaborate brand stories for a business-to-business (B2B) market, a study was conducted in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia. The research was conducted among employees responsible for social media management in SMEs across Namibia and a sequential mixed methods design was adopted from the philosophy of pragmatism. The research consisted of a purposive sample of ten participants for the qualitative phase employing semi-structured in-depth interviews. The quantitative phase consisted of 150 participants purposefully for the survey questionnaire. The research was centred around three theoretical concepts: brand storytelling, B2B marketing, co-creation or collaboration. Research on this topic was relatively new, hence the exploratory nature. Research on brand stories co-creation has been mainly explored from the business-to-consumer (B2C) perspective and rarely explored from the B2B point of view. The results implied that most SMEs in Namibia’s B2B market strategically use Facebook to maximise business exposure and engage in cost-effective marketing. The findings also suggest a growing interest in collaboration activities on Facebook among SMEs in Namibia. Ten brand story elements were identified as part of a good brand story on Facebook. The findings of this research will contribute to the scant body of knowledge in the B2B industry and may further be explored for future studies on similar topics.
M.A. (Marketing Communication)