The Business of Social Media Influencing in Africa

 

Social media influencing is fast becoming a major aspect of marketing in Africa. This is because the billboard, television and radio advertisements are no longer getting the job done the way they used to back in the days. With regards to this article, I would like to use Nigeria which is the largest country in West Africa (with regards to population) as my case study. If we are to discuss the business of social media influencing in Africa, we would have to talk about everything that is involved in social media influencing such as:

·         What is social media influencing?

·         Who is a social media influencer?

·         What are the benefits of using social media influencers in advertising?

·         What are the different types of social media influencers that exist?

·         What are the advantages and disadvantages of social media influencing?

 

What is Social Media Influencing?

Social media influencing is the use of certain influencers (mainly people who have a large audience/followership on social media) to advertise products or services so that they can reach a larger audience. Social media influencing requires the use of hashtags to make sure that the products trend, questions and answers and in some cases the use of polls (majorly on Twitter).

 

Who Is a Social Media Influencer?

A social media influencer is someone who helps a business or a company in the promotion of their products to a larger audience. For someone to be a social media influencer, one has to have a large audience or followership on social media such as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The minimum number of followership required in order to become a social media influencer starts from 1000.

 

What Are the Benefits of Using Social Media Influencers in Advertising?

There are lots of benefits associated with social media influencing. If we were to start listing, we would not be able to conclude. When we talk about benefits in social media influencing, there are benefits for both the advertisers and the influencers.

For the advertisers, the use of social media influencing allows for their products to reach a wider audience. It is not just the fact that it reaches a wider audience that is important, but the fact that social media influencing has a way of making sure that a lot of people patronise a certain product. How is this achieved? This is achieved by giving the products to social media influencers who have a track record of massive engagement with their audience. Note: Not all influencers are engaging. For the influencers that are engaging, the audience is always ready and willing to patronise whatever they endorse because of their track record. An example on Twitter is @MaziIbe_.

A lot of his followers like him and are always willing to patronise products endorsed by him because of the testimonies that people who have done the same in the past give about such products.

Another benefit, now with regards to the influencers themselves, is the fact that it is possible to make a lot of money within a very short period. This depends on the amount of jobs that they get and how much they are paid for each job. According to most influencers on Twitter, the average payment for a social media influencer with a thousand followers is between twenty to sixty thousand naira depending on how long the advertisement would last and how engaging the influencer is.

What Are the Different Types of Social Media Influencers that Exist?

According to Twitter standards of evaluating social media influencers (I’m using Twitter because that is my most preferred social media), there are three types of social media influencers namely: the micro influencers, the macro influencers and the mega influencers.

Micro Influencers: The micro influencers are those who have a followership of between 1000 followers to 50,000 followers and above. This kind of influencers might get more advertising jobs because they do not charge as high as their other counterparts for advertisements.

Macro Influencers: Macro influencers have a followership base of between 50,000 to 1,000,000. People like the social media skit producers and comedians @twyse_116 and @Sydney_Talker fall into this category. This category of influencers can charge as high as they want because they are very engaging and have a wider reach than the micro influencers, although sometimes, they might not get as much jobs as the micro influencers who bill lesser fees. If we are to go by the anecdote, “less is more” though, they might actually be doing better.

Mega Influencers: Mega influencers have followers ranging from a million followers to five million followers and above. Celebrities like Cynthia Nwadiora of Big Brother Nigeria (@ceec_official) with a followership of 2.4 million on Instagram, Tunde Ednut (@tundeednut) with a followership of 2 million on Instagram and Funke Akindele (@funkejenifaakindele) with a followership of 9.9 million also on Instagram, fall into this category. Most of the social media influencers in this category get endorsement deals from local and multinational companies to advertise on their behalf a lot of times. They’re the richest category of social media influencers.

 

What Are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Influencing?

As I stated above, the advantage of social media influencing is that it has the ability to reach a wider audience. A lot of young people these days prefer Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and other types of social media to listening to the radio or watching the television and this is based on the fact that their phones are always with them. It is impossible to always carry a radio or a television set with you all the time.

Just like everything that has an advantage, there are also disadvantages associated with social media influencing. I would like to mention just two. The first one is the fact that you cannot control how a social media influencer will handle your work. Sometimes, a social media influencer might decide to run your advertisement programme which was meant to last for a month, for just two weeks even after they have been fully paid.

Another disadvantage is that if you do not have a way of measuring metrics, a social media influencer might give you fake numbers as the metrics for your social media advertisements.

The business of social media influencing is growing rapidly in Africa and it might gradually take over from other forms of advertising soon.