HOW TO GROW AND EXPAND YOUR BUSINESS USING THE SOCIAL MEDIA IN NIGERIA

The truth is that the social media is here to stay and you had better wake up to that reality.

I have had the opportunity to discuss with small business owners and even some medium scale business owners and usually they ignore me when I ask them how effective they are on the social media.

It is sad.

For once in our generation, in our life time, we have the opportunity to do massive publicity without paying for it directly.

Now, even we have to pay, the amount is really small. For example, the cheapest face book ad is $5. You could reach out to thousands of people within a particular location with just $5. In Nigerian Naira, that is about  N800. All you need is just a Master Card from any of our Nigerian banks and you are good to go.

Facebook has over 1 billion members.

Twitter has more than 300 million members.

Google Plus is approaching 100 million.

Millions of Nigerians are using the Black Berry.

A lot of youths are on watsap, badoo, twoo.

There are even a growing number on linkedin, a site dedicated to connecting professionals.

Have you noticed that there is so much talk about Ecommerce business? Companies like JUMIA invested $1 million when they started. They used that money for yahoo and google ads, bill boards and radio and television ads.

Why will Tunde Kehinde and Raphael Afaedor, founders of Jumia, invest that much when they began? Sources tell us that today they have a $70 million company.

The answer is simple. A lot of Nigerians are online.

Dealdey, Konga and even Olx, a south African company, have started doing a lot of business in Nigeria.

The banks are not left out. GTB,Zenith Bank,EcoBank and the others are creating products that can make business transactions and payment very easy.

Research has it that if Facebook were to be a country, it would be the third largest country in the world. In Nigeria, more than 5 million (and still counting) are on facebook.

In business, the wealth is in the number. You know that, don’t you?

A lot of people first people look at their facebook pages before they listen to the news.

I heard about the death of Mandela less than 2 minutes after it was announced in South Africa. I got the news from a tweet. Then it went spiral.

As a business man, you should be smart enough to know that with a facebook account, you can freely advertise your products and services without charge. And why shouldn’t do that?

It is an error not to use a smart phone as a business man.With that smart phone you should download facebook app, olx app, twitter app and any other business enhancing app you can download.

It is simple to do. Most android phones and mobile devices come with a google playstore app. You can use that to download these free apps.

Make sure that your cover picture on Facebook and Twitter carries your business advert. Leave your number and contacts on it too.To do that, get a graphic designer to design a ‘flyer’, j-peg it and then upload it as a cover picture. It is as simple as that.

Of course, to have success , you need to have followership. Doing that is not as hard.

For facebook, join as many groups as possible. Some facebook groups have more than 10,000 members.

Joining them will give you access to the 10,000. I am personally in 120 groups. I have a friendship of 5000 the maximum on facebook. Also link your facebook to your twitter account so that all your tweets automatically appear on your facebook page.

Post regularly on face book and tweet. Broadcast on BB and watsap constantly.

You don’t have to be original. Just look for interesting articles related to your business and post,tweet or broadcast. Doing these drives traffic to you.

Make sure to also upload pictures of your products and services. Add your number and your office address.

You could create a blog and blog about business. Trust me , these 21st century methods will quadruple your sales and brand you. All the best. See you next time.