NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 18 – Kenyan tech startup Wowzi is targeting to create one million jobs for the youth in the African region in 2022.
The firm that connects brands with influencers to scale up their marketing says it plans to onboard over a million youth onto its platform creating opportunities for them to earn a living by using their media platforms to advertise brands.
Speaking on Thursday during the company’s official launch in the East African market, Wowzi Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Brian Mogeni said companies are increasingly aligning their marketing strategies to tap into social media users.
“Social media platforms provide a large canvas for brand visibility seeing as the average human being spends 145 minutes on social media per day. This has largely driven up the need for marketing in the digital space as more social media influencers crop up,” he said.
East Africa has 20 million social media users according to Hootsuite Digital 2021 Data Report.
Kenya leads the pack with 11 million social media users, 20.2 percent of the population followed by Tanzania at 5.4 million users representing 8.9 percent of the population while Uganda has about 3.4 million social media users representing 7.3 percent of the population.
“Emerging markets are low trust environments, as a result, nano influencers deliver better-qualified sales leads. And now anyone with a phone can be an influencer,” he added.
Nano influencers are social media users with 250 to 5000 followers.
“Nano-Influencers have closer relationships with their followers than larger influencers.
Engagement on posts by nano-influencers is nearly 3 times higher than larger influencers. People trust authentic endorsements by nano influencers more than other messengers and brands.” he explained.
The firm has signed up 50, 000 influencers in the East African Region so far and has carried out 15, 000 campaigns for over 150 clients.
“In September 2021, Safaricom engaged a small “army” of influencers to create TikTok videos and within seven hours of going live, and for just USD 2,500, the challenge generated 3 million views for the hashtag with thousands of user-generated posts. Within 1 week, the hashtag garnered 6.2million views,” he explained.
Mogeni announced the firm plans to enter three new markets including Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa over the next month.
On his part, Absa Bank Kenya Chief Executive Jeremy Awori who was the Chief Guest at the launch said behavioral changes as to what constitutes work, taking up gigs as independent contractors, remote work, virtual meetings, are likely to stick beyond the pandemic.
“Africa is primed to milk this opportunity: a young population, improved connectivity to the internet, two ingredients that will be key in tapping the gig economy to create jobs for economic growth,” Awori said.
