The Use of Social Media Tools for Effective Communication in Construction Project Delivery in Maiduguri Metropolis, Borno State

Abstract

Social media is a vital tool that aids in communication amongst construction project stakeholders. The main issue that propelled this study was scarcity of information on the extent of deploying the use of social media tools for effective and efficient construction project delivery in Maiduguri metropolis. Against this backdrop, this study aimed to examine the use of social media for effective communication in construction project delivery in the Maiduguri metropolis. Survey design was used for the conduct of the study. Due to restrictions and constraint, a purposive sampling of 105 questionnaires was administered to representatives of clients, contractors, and consultants using multiple snowballed sampling techniques. The questionnaire administration attained a 73.75% response rate. Data were analyzed with a statistical package for social science (SPSS version 24.0) tool for frequencies, percentages, and regression. 14 social media tools were investigated based on the strengths and limitations of each platform within the context of construction project communication. The findings indicate that, the most used social media tools for communication during construction project delivery in the study area are: The most frequently used social media tool was WhatsApp with 39%, followed by rarely used tool; Snap chart (40.7%), Twitter (52.5%), Facebook (35.6%), Telegram (39%), Youtube (25.4%) and Facebook messenger having 18.6% respectively. The findings equally revealed that, the deployment of social media will have a very high impact of 54.2%, 42.4% and 44.1% on timely completion, budgeted cost, and completion of project within the anticipated quality expectations in the study area. Furthermore, the results show significant positive cause-effects of social media communication on construction project delivery time, cost and quality in the study area. This suggested that, social media tools should be adopted by stakeholders to achieve effective and efficient communication in order to enhance successful construction project delivery. More research should be carried out to come up with new communication technologies that are user friendly.