Nigeria, your business and the social media buzz

Nigeria, your business and the social media buzz

As at March 2011, The internet world stats puts the number of Nigerian facebook users at almost 3 million (2,991,200), and in a country with an estimated 44 million internet users, a facebook penetration rate of 1.9%, an ever increasing number of bloggers, twitter users, many professionals joining LinkedIn and the enthusiasm of the Nigerian social media about Google+, Nigerian marketers cannot ignore this sector for much longer.

At the moment we have a few Nigerian entrepreneurs advertising their products on facebook, but mostly these are small & young entrepreneurs who are active on facebook personally, very few Nigerian businesses really make use of social media, a visit to many facebook or twitter pages for Nigerian business shows no recent activities and few connections.

Social media and your business

Many Nigerian professionals still view social media as an individual thing, and a sort of playground, however I have found social media to be a place for interaction, and when businesses start to view it this way they start to see a need for an integrated campaign tailored towards a select set of people within the social media circle. Here are a few pointers for business owners looking to take advantage of Nigeria’s social media space below:

1.       Define your aims and objectives

There is a danger of joining the social media buzz and getting missing in the crowd, many businesses have joined social media without any clear terms on achievements and ways of measuring success. Be sure to have a clearly mapped out plan to put out your message and measure the success of your campaigns.

2.       Define your audience/targets

The social media world is so diverse; you meet all sorts of individuals and businesses there. It is important to define your target audience before you embark on the social media journey. It is important to define WHO, WHY and WHERE.

a.       Who do we want to network with?

b.      Why have we decided to network with these people?

c.       Where are these people? Are they on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ etc?

3.       Interact with your targets

Interaction is key, when you get your targets you need to interact with them so as to keep them coming back.

a.       Entice your targets with an idea of what you have to offer – First impressions last the longest, so make sure you have a clear message to deliver on first visit, and clear idea of what you have to tell them.

b.      Have your ears to the ground – Social media users are usually very outspoken, listen, respond and engage them.

c.       Build custom applications – If you have a business that involves apps, build custom applications to suit your audience and whatever devices they use, an example is the SDL Free Translation facebook app - https://www.facebook.com/FreeTranslationApp.

d.      Practice what you preach – You want your targets to interact with you on facebook? There is a high likelihood many of your employees are on facebook already, let them join in the party, build a facebook group for your company where your employees can interact with each other, chances are many of them are already connected.

4.       Empower your company to do the job – Do not assume that anybody can be social media marketer, invest in employing someone with the necessary skills, or organise trainings for your current employees who have been selected to do the job

5.       Deal with legal and executive loopholes – Make sure to have your company’s legal team in the loop, and don’t forget the executives, they might just kick against all your hardwork, but if you have done most of the good work I have mentioned above and pitch it to them with clearly defined strategies, chances are that the executive will be willing to give you the green light.

In conclusion, I believe joining the social media world or not should not be complicated business, a simple analysis of your business processes and long term strategy is enough for you to make this decision. It is either good for you or not, the decision is yours, but there is certainly a large market out there to be poached.

Written by Ifeoluwa Adebayo

The Cloud Revolution – An Opportunity for Africa

The Cloud Revolution – An Opportunity for Africa

Cloud computing basically means doing less with your computer and doing more in the cloud – on the internet. Organisations are jumping on the cloud train at a very fast rate. The cloud is moving in diverse ways, from cloud based apps like Google docs to Software as a Service (SaaS) applications like Sales Force.

Why Africa must embrace Cloud Computing:

·         Development of the private sector
Information technology has been a major factor in the growth of small firms in developing countries. However, most companies are impeded in their adoption of information technology to boost their work due to many reasons. Issues such as cost of hardware and software and lack of local availability of technology are some factors. If Africa wants to increase the acceleration of its growth, the private sector must embrace cloud computing the way mobile phones have been embraced.

Melissa Leon writes in her blog (http://extendedvillage.com/cloud-computing-africa) about how they help local leaders in Kenya use the cloud for improved efficiency and to safe guard against loss of data.

 

·         Current infrastructure – Mobile Cloud Computing
Looking at the current infrastructure for internet access in Africa, mobile platforms seem to be the preferred means available for online activities. As at 2008, the International Telecommunication Union stated that Africa had over 300 million mobile subscribers and as at 2009 David Smith of the Guardian predicted a rise of 550% in mobile users across Africa in 5 years. In Africa, the number of mobile users far outnumbers the number of internet users, therefore any business looking to go into the mobile cloud stands at an advantage as it will be easier to increase internet usage by providing needed services on mobile platforms which your clients are already used to.

As the internet revolution sweeps across Africa, the mobile cloud will likely be the first to kick off. It seems Kenya is taking the lead with companies like RedCloud Technologies coming up with solutions to improve the M-PESA money transfer mobile application so that micro-finance institutions can connect to M-PESA to deliver financial services simply and cheaply without queuing in the bank, using mobile money transfer.

Mobile banking and mobile money transfer are also becoming increasingly popular in Nigeria, with financial institutions delivering mobile applications to aid customers carry out transactions.

Will the mobile device be an important tool in the growth of cloud computing for Africa? It certainly will.

Online Security Infrastructure:
One major problem facing Africa in terms of computing and internet usage generally, is that of infrastructure. Without the required infrastructure, growth is impeded, when growth is impeded security becomes irrelevant as there is nothing to secure. This is why a company like Paypal will not do business with Nigerian based payment merchants. While we see companies like Pesapal (https://www.pesapal.com/home/about) in Kenya, East Africa and CashU (https://www.cashu.com/) in North Africa making massive inroads into the online payment industry, we find companies such as Etranzact (http://www.etranzact.com) in Nigeria, West Africa still not able to fully take control of the vast opportunities available to them.

The right infrastructure to make good and fast internet access affordable is necessary for cloud computing to take off fully in Africa. The mobile companies seem to be ahead in providing this service.

It is interesting to know that African Governments are beginning to pick an interest in this. The Rwandan Government recently hosted the 12th Forum on Telecommunication/ICT Regulation and Partnership in Africa in June 2011. We need more of such interests and activities from Governments in Africa.

Trust and Credibility:
The International Community has not fully embraced opportunities in cloud computing in Africa due to the fact there is very little trust base. A lot of people might argue against this point, but if you look at the number of companies ready to work with Kenya, with M-Pesa being initially sponsored by the UK-based Department for International Development (DFID) compared to those ready to work with countries always in the news for the bad reasons, then you will understand that IT services, including cloud computing has taken off much faster in places like Kenya due to a better trust base.
Multinational companies still prefer to open their computing centres in places like South Africa with a better trust base. IBM opened Africa’s first major cloud computing centre in South Africa in 2008.

Bigger African countries with huge potentials for profit must step up their game with government policies that provide conducive environments for companies to have enough faith in, to invest.
Secondly, local companies must seek cooperation with multinationals with proven track records, this gives them a voice and adds credibility to their services.

Conclusion:
Gartner, an IT research and advisory firm,  forecasts that by 2012 industrialized utility and cloud-based services will account for at least 50 percent of the new demand for managed IT infrastructure services. The opportunity for African businesses and locals to fully join this cloud world is likely based on the widespread use of mobile and tablet devices on the continent. Businesses will do well to focus on mobile cloud options in the interim, to enable them reach a wider audience and therefore have more impact. This is an opportunity for Africa, we do not have to wait for the infrastructure which we lack, we can simple harness the potentials of the mobile cloud, and get almost all the advantages of cloud computing.

Written by Ifeoluwa Adebayo