Brand awareness, high productivity and business relevance in today’s digital age are achieved through the use of social media in marketing products and services. However, some small business owners realize these benefits of social media marketing, but still do not actively use it. Therefore, this study investigates the use of social media as a marketing tool by makeup artists in Ibadan metropolis, Nigeria. The study examined their attitude, perceived ease of use, preferred social media platforms, factors influencing use and challenges to the use of social media as a marketing tool. Survey design was adopted. Purposive sampling was used in selecting 35 makeup artists who use social media for their business. Qualitative data were obtained through face-to-face interviews. Interview responses were transcribed and thematically analysed using NVivo version 12. The findings revealed that makeup artists in Ibadan
metropolis have positive attitude towards the use of social media as a marketing tool and a high-level usage of social media platforms was reported. They perceived social media platforms as very easy to use and their most preferred platform was Instagram followed by WhatsApp. Factors influencing the use of social media included: the desire to be popular and have more customers, to make more money, and for technological advancement. Challenges to the use of social media included: high data cost, negative comments from
followers, and unauthorized use of their pictures by others. The study recommends SME’s partnership with telecommunication firms on provision of special data package for social media marketing.