Category: Insights
Mobile Money
Mobile money is a digital form of payment that allows users to send and receive money using their mobile phones. The service allows users to store money in digital wallets. They can then use this to make payments, transfer money and even withdraw cash from authorized agents.
“Africa now accounts for 70% of the world’s $1 trillion mobile money value. The value of Africa’s mobile money transactions edged up 39% to $701.4 billion in 2021 from $495 billion in 2020.” (QZ) More recent stats say that this figure and other vital signs of mobile money penetration are only going to keep going up, especially in East and West Africa.
A short history
Safaricom, the biggest mobile phone service in Kenya, launched mobile money for the first time in Africa in 2007. Users of the M-Pesa program could send, receive and store money from their phones, and for the first time in Africa, this new digital payment platform allowed people in remote places to be included financially. It took off almost immediately and other African countries followed suit. Now, driven by the wild mobile phone penetration in Africa, more than 150 mobile money providers operate in 47 different African countries. Mobile money has now established itself as a commonplace element of the continent’s financial landscape.
The Consumer Behaviour Shift
Mobile money has included rural communities where the option of traditional banking does not exist (and is not coming soon). It has also softened the security risks associated with cash transactions in such locations. From the marketing perspective, consumers who have adopted mobile money use in their everyday lives are a different kind of consumer from the ones who have not. What changes in consumer behaviour should brands be aware of?
A. Mobile money has increased willingness to pay (WTP) among consumers. Consumers are much more likely to find the convenience and availability of mobile money attractive. This could trigger more purchases per user than before. It could also (more importantly) cause an aversion toward businesses that do not offer mobile money payment.
B. Mobile money penetration also means consumers now have more options apart from the in-person shopping experience available from the brick-and-mortar businesses within their immediate location. The combination of the freedom to shop from brands far away and the convenience of paying for products and services with mobile money opens up new audiences for brands in Africa.
Mobile Marketing
With more people using mobile devices for transactions and browsing, it’s crucial for brands to meet customers where they are—on their phones. Here are some mobile marketing strategies that marketers can look to implement:
Mobile-First Approach:
Marketers need to prioritize mobile channels in their strategies to reach the growing base of mobile money users. This involves optimizing websites and advertising content for mobile devices, developing mobile apps that facilitate seamless transactions, and implementing SMS or app-based marketing campaigns. Emphasizing mobile-friendly user experiences will ensure that brands remain accessible and relevant to the majority of consumers who rely on mobile money for financial transactions.
Partnerships with Mobile Money Providers:
Collaborating with mobile money providers offers marketers the opportunity to tap into their extensive networks and customer databases. By forming strategic partnerships, marketers can access valuable consumer insights, target audiences more precisely, and facilitate seamless payment experiences for their products or services. This collaboration can enhance brand visibility and drive customer engagement within the mobile money ecosystem.
Localized and Culturally Relevant Content:
To resonate with diverse African audiences, marketers must craft content that reflects local languages, customs, and preferences. Understanding the unique socio-economic contexts of different regions is essential for tailoring marketing messages that resonate with consumers using mobile money. By incorporating culturally relevant imagery, language, and storytelling into their campaigns, marketers can build trust and drive brand loyalty among African consumers who are embracing mobile money as a preferred payment method.
As part of its collaborative campaign for Prudential Insurance, Pulse Ghana deployed a wide-reaching SMS mobile marketing initiative which delivered over 1 million messages to potential customers of Prudential Insurance, people who could not be reached via the internet.
This initiative was a mobile-first approach. It also involved a partnership with telecommunications providers (mobile money providers). The title of the campaign was Mekrakrawa, a word in the local language which translates to installmental payments. This clearly communicates product affordability to the target market in a way that is localized and culturally relevant.
If you’re interested in a mobile marketing campaign in Africa, the marketing teams in all 6 markets where Pulse operates have the expertise and experience to deploy this from end to end and deliver on campaign objectives.
Pulse also offers video production and social media management capabilities. To learn more about mobile marketing or to partner, get in touch.
Navigating the Marketing Landscape: A Recap of 2023 and Insights for 2024
As we approach the close of 2023, marketers worldwide are gearing up for 2024, seeking insights that can give their brands a competitive edge in the coming year. This article provides an insightful review of the trends that defined the marketing landscape in 2023 and anticipates their continued impact in the coming year.
The Rise of Social Commerce
In 2023, the sphere of influencer marketing experienced remarkable growth, boasting a 21% increase and evolving into a robust 21.1 billion dollar industry. Influencer marketing, proven to enhance brand awareness, build trust, and set trends, is poised to maintain its influence in 2024. Identify influencers aligned with your products and services to maximise their benefits, fostering collaborations that resonate with your audience. Additionally, User-generated Content (UGC) continues to wield substantial influence. Outsourcing marketing to an engaged and enthusiastic audience through UGC yields exponential brand awareness.
Marketing at Scale with AI
Generative AI emerged as a transformative force in marketing, even in its early stages. Demonstrating its utility in creating specific aspects of marketing campaigns and strategies, AI tools assist in trend spotting, data analysis, streamlined operations, and guided content creation. As we anticipate 2024, AI is expected to unveil even more powerful capabilities, offering invaluable support to marketing teams globally. Staying attuned to these advancements positions marketers as early adopters of this burgeoning wave.
Improved Customer Experience (Hyper-Personalization)
A pivotal trend in 2023 was hyper-personalization, resonating with up to 90% of users. The allure lies in making users and customers feel acknowledged and heard, a strategy that consistently scores points. Hyper-personalization achieves this on a grand scale, leaving both customers and brands satisfied. While the execution of hyper-personalization may witness shifts in audience preferences, the trend itself remains steadfast. Exploring novel, industry-specific approaches to make your audience feel seen can profoundly impact audience sentiment, potentially fostering brand affinity, conversions, and long-term loyalty.
Video Marketing Evolution
In 2023, the role of video marketing continued to expand. With platforms like TikTok gaining immense popularity, short-form video content became a staple for engaging audiences. Looking forward to 2024, marketers can explore innovative ways to leverage video, considering the rise of new platforms and the evolving preferences of the target audience.
Interactive Content Engagement
Interactive content, such as polls, quizzes, and augmented reality experiences, gained traction in 2023. This trend is expected to continue into 2024 as it enhances user engagement and provides a personalized experience. Incorporating interactive elements into marketing strategies can foster deeper connections with the audience.
In conclusion, 2023 illuminated the dynamic nature of marketing, paving the way for innovations that will undoubtedly shape 2024. As marketers, embracing these trends strategically positions us to navigate the evolving landscape and create impactful campaigns that resonate with our audience.
Techniques for African storytelling in video production
What’s the best movie you’ve ever seen? Whatever your answer, you have more likely selected that movie because of the story it told, and how that affected you, not because of the camera angles or the CGI.
Storytelling is the bedrock of human communication. Stories are how generations throughout history have preserved their culture and handed it to the next generation. This is especially true in Africa. In this article, we’ll discuss techniques for African storytelling, and how to respect the nuances and hidden meanings in African stories.
Cultural sensitivity in storytelling.
In telling African stories, it is important to take note of the individual sensitivities of the cultural background against which the story is set. This is because it is easy to introduce (or eliminate) an element that offends the culture and ultimately causes a bad backlash. An example of cultural insensitivity is this campaign by Coca-Cola, and this one by H&M in South Africa.
So what storytelling techniques work well in African stories? Let’s discuss a few of them.
The Hero’s Journey
In the hero’s journey, the hero leaves home or a comfortable place and sets out on a journey, facing internal and external conflict and a great trial. He comes back home after overcoming that great trial, with a reward or newfound wisdom, which then benefits the community.This kind of technique plays well in the African context, as most stories feature a protagonist who has to face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, after which he is rewarded in some way.
This kind of technique plays well in the African context, as most stories feature a protagonist who has to face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, after which he is rewarded in some way.
Allegory or Symbolism
Symbolism is a strong part of African culture. While crafting a video script, it’s important to introduce elements, visual or otherwise, whose presence, transformation or interaction represent a deeper meaning.Visual elements
Video content affords the storyteller an array of tools with which to further emphasise the tone of the message, the mood, or the general setting. Take advantage of visual elements like brightness, colour treatment, imagery, etc to drive home the point.As a brand or a marketing team planning your next brand video or campaign, the story needs to tick all the right boxes. You need a technique that frames the customer perfectly in relation to the brand or product, a message that stays with the audience. One way to do both is to script the perfect story, one that pays attention to cultural sensibilities and even pays homage to the culture through symbolism and other elements. The winning story will achieve all these and resonate with the target audience. Video content like this is pure gold, and in some cases can be evergreen, which means you can resurface it every season, and re-engage your audience and tap into that human angle.
If you need a partner in Africa with the experience and expertise to build deeper connections and brand loyalty with your customers through video production, that partner is Pulse. Having worked with some of the continent’s biggest brands, and built the largest digital audience in Sub-Saharan Africa, Pulse keeps its finger on the pulse of the communities it serves and is in touch with contemporary culture. Its position at the nexus of things in the digital world means that it can deliver video projects that exceed expectations and win over huge chunks of the target.
To start a conversation, send an email to [email protected].
What social media strategy really means
Knowing the type of post that will bring you the required interaction between you and your followers on social media is critical for achieving your social media goals. To constantly achieve the engagement numbers you need for your brand, you have to have a social media strategy in place. What is social media strategy and why does it matter?
A social media strategy is a document outlining your social media goals, the tactics you will use to achieve them and the metrics you will track to measure your progress. (Hootsuite)
For brands and companies, when we talk about social media strategy, we are talking about a carefully planned outline of content that includes execution, structure, and tasks for social media teams. It’s important to have a clear understanding of the brand’s business goals. You should be able to draw a straight line from the business goals to your social media goals, so that your social media results will align with results from other marketing and sales initiatives.
In this media-saturated climate, having a consistent social media strategy is super important because it focuses your social media efforts, and helps you to stand out and attract the right audience to your content. Today, we will talk about certain key factors that ultimately make up a good SM Strategy
Setting Goals
Goals are where you begin when you’re creating a social media strategy. It’s important to set clear deliverables and parameters (Key Performance Indicators) to measure whether your content is working successfully or not. KPIs may encompass metrics such as total reach, engagement rate, number of orders received, new followers, etc. all achieved within a defined time frame, whether it’s on a monthly or quarterly basis. As an example, you might set a goal of gaining one hundred new followers within the upcoming month. Your social media goals should be very closely linked to your business goals.
Target Audience
It’s essential to understand the target audience and craft a strategy tailored to them, taking into account the predominant gender, demographic, and interests. These learnings will help you to develop and distribute the exact kind of content that will resonate with your audience. For example, if your brand serves young adults looking for affordable engagement rings, this will guide what kind of content you create, and how you choose to distribute it.
Social Media Channels
A brand may consider the possibility of having their presence and relevance on all the popular social platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and currently Threads. If they can sustain content distribution on all these channels in the long run, that’s great. But oftentimes, that is not the case. You may maintain a presence on all the platforms, but strategy and raw audience insight data will dictate to your team which channel to pay attention to and serve the most.
Content Planning
This involves the type of content to be distributed on your social platforms (e.g. images, videos, GIFs, links, etc.) Understand that the content types should be relevant, aligned, and valuable to the platform and audience. You will find that video content is driving the most engagement. So in the content planning stage, you may want to prioritize video content that aligns and is likely to generate engagement.
Content Calendar
A content calendar is a schedule for when and how often to post content, using platform insights and analytics to derive the best and peak times to keep the audience engaged.
Engagement Strategy
Your strategy for engagement should be to create a connection with the audience through comments and responses, thereby humanizing the brand. A good social media strategy should make room to have a human and friendly feel. Keep this in mind as you craft captions. How you present your brand to the audience will determine largely how they perceive you, and how they respond.
Crisis Management
As you grow your social media and your channels become more and more popular, there’s a likelihood for backlash or negative sentiments. A good social media strategy should have measures in place for situations like this. You should have a standard crisis plan for such an eventuality, designed to provide an appropriate response (if one is needed) and ultimately maintain and preserve the values of the brand.
Our strategy has delivered significant results for us, and a prime example of this is our presence on TikTok. We’ve witnessed tremendous growth. To put it into perspective, we launched our TikTok account in 2021 with only less than 50 followers, and now we’ve surged to an impressive 1.2 million followers.
Conclusion
Social media management evolves frequently. So should every brand or company’s typical social media strategy. This is to ensure that at every step of a brand’s or business’s growth, there is consistent alignment with the audience preference, insights/analytics, and adjusting to algorithms of each platform. Constant monitoring and proper optimization of content are required, and having put everything in place, it is important to recognize that the achievement of social media goals is a process that takes some time.
We offer social media end-to-end management as a core expertise at Pulse. From helping on social media strategy to executing the strategy fully for client social media (including content creation), we have built a reputation across our 6 operative markets in Africa, where we apply our social media expertise and our digital publishing experience to exceed expectations for partner brands. Talk to us here.
(This article was contributed by the social media team at Pulse Ghana.)
Using data to drive Sales: Metrics you should be looking at
The importance of a data-driven sales strategy cannot be overstated. In the fast-paced world of agile and conscious audiences, metrics can help you make sense, and get a full, rich picture of what exactly your sales efforts are achieving, and how audiences are responding. Your business data analytics suite is a powerful tool for streamlining and finetuning your sales effort. If you choose not to look at the data, you may be driving your sales team and ploughing hard in the opposite direction from where some of your most valuable prospective clients are gathered.
In this Pulse Insights article, we’re going to highlight some of the important numbers to pay attention to, and weigh your sales efforts and results against.
So what metrics should you know, and actively track, and how do you make sense of these figures at the end of each cycle?
We’ll take a look at the most important ones here today.
Customer Acquisition Metrics
Conversion rate
Conversion rate measures the ratio between how many visitors or prospective customers you received within a given period and how many of them took the desired action. The conversion rate reveals the effectiveness of your sales funnel.
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
This metric generally evaluates the efficiency of your marketing campaigns. The CPA measures the aggregate cost to acquire one paying customer on a campaign or channel level.
Sales Funnel Metrics
Lead-to-opportunity ratio
How many leads were generated versus how many leads were converted? This metric reveals the quality of leads the sales team is generating, which can help to inform the sales team’s lead generation strategy.
Opportunity win rate
This metric measures the number of opportunities won, divided by the total number of opportunities created within a specific time period. This helps you in evaluating the effectiveness of your sales team in closing opportunities.
Website and E-commerce Metrics
For marketers whose products and services live on an e-commerce website, these metrics are vital.
Website conversion rate
You want to track the total traffic to your e-commerce website against the percentage of those visitors who make a purchase.
Cart abandonment rate
This metric is to evaluate the effectiveness of your checkout process. By tracking what percentage of customers add items to a cart and end up not going through with their purchase.
Social Media and Email Marketing Metrics
If most of your customers or visitors to your e-commerce website are driven by your social media and/or email channels, then there are also important metrics to be paying attention to.
Engagement rate
The engagement rate measures the ratio of followers you have against the level of interaction with your social media content. This gives you a picture of how engaging your content is to your audience.. This metric is subject to the algorithmic changes made on social channels. For instance, based on your activity, Instagram can limit the reach of an account and considerably affect the overall engagement rate over a period. Engagement rate is still a good yardstick for businesses to gauge audience interest, especially when you compare your engagement rate with what is considered average.
Click-through rate (CTR)
When you include a link in an email to your database, what percentage of the total audience actually clicks on that link. This is the click-through rate, and this metric measures accurately the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns.
Analysing and Utilising Data
To be able to get an accurate picture of the overall performance of your campaigns and social posts, it is vital to collect accurate and reliable data. You want to double-check the start and end dates of the campaigns, and make sure you’re entering the correct data into your query when you obtain analytics data from social channels.
You should also consider running your sales initiatives and efforts through data analytics tools. Independent analytics tools like Hubspot, Sprout Social and Hootsuite may provide more detailed reports and insights into your social and web activity, and what results you have realised by that activity.
Conclusion
If you’re interested in concentrating your sales and marketing efforts to deliver better results and ultimately a better bottom line, then monitoring key metrics like website conversion rate, lead-to-opportunity ratio and others mentioned in this article should be part of your periodic assessment. Not only is it important to look at these figures, but it is also important to invest in understanding very clearly the picture they paint, and the message they send. At the end of your cyclical evaluation of these top metrics, you should be able to condense the figures into a statement, or an adjustment to your campaigns that the numbers suggest when taken together. It may not look like much, but these small adjustments will make for large and more importantly, ongoing improvements in your targeting and conversion, helping you achieve your sales and marketing goals.
Pulse is Africa’s leading innovative media company. We have helped some of Africa’s biggest brands make sense of their marketing and content. If you have further questions, contact us here.
TikTok Insights in Africa
In a relatively short time, Pulse has launched TikTok channels in all its operating markets in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda and Cote d’Ivoire, and has seen these channels record enormous and consistent growth. We’re seeing Africa’s biggest demographic (young people) show up more and more on TikTok, and by the audience’s behaviour, we can now say for certain that young people in Africa, like the rest of the world, are more engaged through short form, easy to understand video content.
We have seen that when presented in this format, the audience will consume most topics including news, and politics. Young people are the largest demographic in Africa, and the target for most brands. If your brand targets young people, you should consider setting up a TikTok account or if you already have one, being more intentional with your strategy and content on the platform.
Having built our cumulative TikTok community to over 5 million across the continent, we have learned a thing or two about the channel. In this article, we’re speaking to TikTok channel managers in our 6 operating markets about their strategy for winning.
How have you managed to grow your channels since managing them?
Aby Lo (Senegal)
I’ve posted a lot of Vox Pop and Fun Fact content format videos
Chioma Anyanwu (Nigeria)
I have been able to manage the channel by understanding the audience and the kind of content they consume, being consistent, and making sure I put out posts on time.
The format I’ve leaned heavily on is Entertainment posts, green screen format, celebrity updates, and fashion content.
Carmelle Niamke (Côte d’Ivoire)
For me, it’s by posting as many videos as possible per day, and using trending sounds to boost videos. Also, publishing Pulse Lists worked a lot at the beginning, with green screen content, videos of events, video content where I appear and also Vox Pop content.
Sonia Anena (Uganda)
Since I started managing the Pulse Uganda Tiktok channel, there’s been immense growth
There can be both great and bad months however the great outweighs the bad
I started trying new formats, jumping on trends and breaking stories quite fast. This has been a positive aspect of the channel
Jael Rogers (Ghana)
Our channel’s growth can be attributed to most of our Pulse formats in addition to content I create from events we are invited to. When it comes to the Pulse formats our Pulse Celebs and Pulse VoxPops have really contributed to our growth.
Charity Muia (Kenya)
I started managing Pulse Kenya’s account in mid-2021 and the account has grown significantly since then. I found the account at 55K followers and now we are close to 400K and are the leading media publisher on TikTok in Kenya.
When it comes to growing on TikTok, I have ensured that we stay consistent as a brand. Consistency in the type of content we publish, the number of videos we post, and when we publish has been our biggest hack.
Another factor that has contributed to our growth is giving our audience what they want and what they know us for. As a trusted media publisher, there is a way our Kenyan audience perceives us and has some level of expectations from us as a brand and understanding that has helped us grow on TikTok and remain the top media publisher on TikTok in Kenya.
Originality has to be top of it all for us as a market. We ensure we publish quality original content on our TikTok. Our aim is to share short-form videos that cover news and events, educational and informative videos, entertainment, and lifestyle content in the most original way.
We publish various content formats that engage our audience and It’s been a learning curve for us as a brand. From experimentation and results, Listicles, our original format ‘Pulse Fun Facts’ and Entertainment/Celebrity content have been our best-performing formats and we have leaned on that.
What have you noticed about the community you attract on TikTok?
Aby Lo (Senegal)
I have a very responsive and involved community.
Chioma Anyanwu (Nigeria)
I have noticed that you have to be familiar with trends and hop on trending sound as fast as they come, our audience love a funny and relatable post, you also have to identify your niche and stick with what works
Carmelle Niamke (Côte d’Ivoire)
I have the impression that the more the number of subscribers increases, the easier it is for people to subscribe.
They like when we surf on the trend, on buzz, and when we offer them entertaining content.
Sonia Anena (Uganda)
The Pulse Uganda Tiktok channel attracts youth who are interested in the Uganda news and entertainment industry
Jael Rogers (Ghana)
I’ve realised that our TikTok audience is interested in content around TikTok Influencers and Celebrities. They mainly comprise the youth, more women than men. We also have audiences in other African countries like Nigeria and Ivory Coast and quite a few in the US and UK. Our audience loves to criticise celebrities and our content and usually put emphasis on using Ghanaian music in our content.
Charity Muia (Kenya)
The Kenyan market is one unique group that knows what it wants and we have been able to give into their content needs and wants.
They have embraced our major content formats with a great interest in Celebrity and Entertainment content. Our audience engages most with short, interesting, and engaging video content that they can easily share, and comment on.
The Kenyan market has a love for Trending topics and discussions and every video we publish about a trending topic, person or event performs extremely well. This cuts across different categories mainly Entertainment and News.
How do you think big brands can leverage your channel to reach their audience, and do you think it’s worth it?
Aby Lo (Senegal)
We have a very engaged and trusted community so brands can easily gain visibility on our page.
Chioma Anyanwu (Nigeria)
Brands can leverage my channel by sticking with the format that works and connects with our audience. The platform has different categories of content that users consume, ranging from entertainment, movies etc So it is definitely worth it to try to find your own audience.
Carmelle Niamke (Côte d’Ivoire)
Tik tok is currently one of the social networks with the most users, it is a young and fun platform. As soon as we adapt their content (products and services) to ours, I think it can work.
Sonia Anena (Uganda)
The Pulse Uganda Tiktok channel attracts youth who are interested in the Uganda news and entertainment industry
Big Brands could focus their campaigns around youths and trends to reach a greater audience
Jael Rogers (Ghana)
Most brands have the youth as their major customers; since our channel’s audience is mostly the youth it makes sense for them to market with our channels. Short videos with trending sounds or dances can easily reach a way larger audience than tv commercials or activations.
Charity Muia (Kenya)
I think it’s worth it for brands to leverage our channel especially if their target audience is between the ages of 18-35 and have a great interest in Entertainment, Lifestyle, and News. We have the numbers and a good number of successful campaigns on our TikTok.
So far, we have worked with various brands on our channel who have been able to leverage our audience during their campaigns and I would say we have had quite successful campaign executions on the channel. We have partnered with Nike, ALX Africa, Tecno, TikTok Kenya, HBCC, and ABAK among others.
In March 2023, we partnered with Nike for their IWD 2023 Campaign and two of the videos published had over 27K views.
In 2022, we had a dance challenge #SafishaNaDance to celebrate Global Handwashing Day with HBCC and the campaign had over 291K views on TikTok.
Most of these campaigns are executed through short-form educational and informative videos and influencer content. Nike and HBCC Campaigns have been the most successful executions and we worked with influencers for both projects thus reaching a wider audience through the Pulse TikTok page and the influencer’s reach.
Pulse has a cumulative following on TikTok this month of over 5 million, at the time of the publishing of this article. Our audiences are young, active, outspoken and engaged. If you’re a brand looking for distribution among young people, our TikTok communities and extensive TikTok influencer network can give you access to millions of users in your target audience, guaranteeing distribution. Drop us an email and we’ll help.
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New Media: Today’s World Belongs to Content Creators and Influencers – Eli Daniel-Wilson
The rise of content creators and influencers has transformed the way brands reach their audiences. In Ghana, this trend has been growing in popularity. In this article, I explore the power of content creators and influencers and their impact on new media. I’d also discuss the next wave of content creation, powered by AI in part 2 of this article.
The Power of Content Creators and Influencers
Brands are increasingly using content creators and influencers to achieve their brand objectives. This approach has been particularly effective more recently, mainly because of the Year-On-Year growth of internet and social media users, and increasingly where people are more likely to be influenced by their peers. In Ghana, for example, influencers have become a powerful force in the beauty, fashion, and lifestyle industries. They have built large followings on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and have used their influence to promote products and services.
The popularity and acceptance of content creators is evident in how they have become very attractive even to traditional media recruiters. Content creators / Influencers are now preferred in finding the next TV Show or Radio show host — because there is the belief that by having them as hosts, they would automatically come along with their followers on social media.
In typical examples, I observed how content creator Kwame Oboadie’s increase in popularity on social media through his humorous content, rants, and skits coincided with his move to Multimedia-Adom FM. We saw how Media General snapped up Felicia Osei for Onua FM watching her consistently go viral for her short videos on IG and TikTok. Mx24 strategically gave Kwadwo Sheldon a show in their first year of operation — which drew a lot of Kwadwo Sheldon’s audience to the brand, which was great for audience acquisition and a hack for the station to build popularity among their core youthful audience. He later got replaced by another content creator, Wesley Kesse, who’s equally popular among young Ghanaians. Little did it surprise me to see Kwadwo Sheldon carry his audience to Kingdom FM to host a segment with Fiifi Pratt.
It’d also intrigue you to discover Afronita’s leg work film — literally, her first big screen production did an unprecedented 4% audience share on Akwaaba magic. That just shows how much power and influence content creators wield in today’s media consumption.
Touching on the infamous comments by Asantewaa the TikToker — when she made the very audacious assertion that artists can’t make hit songs without TikTokers. Now, although she may have oversimplified the message given the context of music and everything that contributes to making a hit song, generally speaking, the import of her message remains true. There’s no music executive today who would deny the impact of content creators on streaming numbers or chart-topping songs. Content creators will more and more define what is hot, trendy, cool, and popular on digital media. It’s inevitable — new media belongs to them.
One of the key advantages of working with content creators and influencers is the ability to reach a highly targeted audience. Unlike traditional media, which is often aimed at a broad demographic, content creators and influencers have built niche audiences based on their interests and personalities. This means that brands can reach their target audience more effectively, and with greater impact.
Since before the pandemic, multiple surveys and reports (see Influencer Marketing Hub report) have said, 63% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets. There is also now an almost consensus, among marketers, that the return on investment (ROI) from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels. These statistics demonstrate the effectiveness of content creators and influencers in achieving brand objectives.
Brands started paying attention first, followed through with increased marketing spend on influencer marketing. The public caught on later, and that became apparent when content creators started to disclose how much they earned from content creation. Jessica OS’ video on YouTube “How much YouTube paid me for 1 million views’’ has close to half a million views — she disclosed at the time of recording she had raked in nearly $6k for gaining 1 million views on one video. Kwadwo Sheldon, another popular YouTuber, recently said in a BBC documentary how much he earns from YouTube. The Kwadwo Sheldon documentary on BBC sparked conversation around his average of $10k earnings a month on YouTube.
African parents, however, are yet to fully board the creator economy where they accept and wholeheartedly support their wards pursuing a full-time career in content creation like they do careers in Engineering and Medicine. Baby steps, we’ll get there.
Conclusion
In conclusion, content creation has had a significant impact on Ghana’s media landscape in recent years. The rise of social media and other digital platforms has allowed individuals and organizations to create and distribute content in new and innovative ways, bypassing traditional media gatekeepers and reaching audiences directly.
Content creation has also played a key role in promoting Ghana’s culture and heritage, with creators using digital platforms to showcase Ghanaian music, art, food, and fashion to a global audience. This has helped to promote Ghana’s image as a vibrant and culturally rich country, while also providing new opportunities for Ghanaian creatives to reach a wider audience and build their own personal brands. There’s a TikTok video by @thatguy_cian asking random people to name a country (mind you, he did not say African country, just country) beginning with the letter G — and an overwhelming majority said GHANA. Ghana surely didn’t buy a flight ticket to Europe, it rode on the coattails of content creators and new media.
Nonetheless, content creation in Ghana is not without its challenges. The lack of reliable internet connectivity and the high cost of data can make it difficult for creators to produce and distribute content, particularly in rural areas. Additionally, the proliferation of fake news and misinformation on digital platforms is a growing concern, highlighting the need for greater media literacy and responsible content creation.
As Ghana’s digital landscape continues to evolve and grow rapidly, I have no doubt that content creation and content creators will play an even more important role in shaping the country’s media and cultural identity.
This article was written by Eli Daniel-Wilson, Director of Sales & Strategy at Pulse Ghana.
Pulse is building the largest network of influencers and creators in Africa, a platform that helps brands connect with the right influencers for their messages and campaigns. To contact the Pulse Influencers Network, please click here.
Marketing innovations to watch in Africa 2023
This article is part of Pulse Insights, our newsletter about marketing insights in Africa, bringing you strategy, insights, industry news and announcements to help you market better and sell more.
It’s a brand new year! A chance to start on a brand new page. Remember your new year’s resolutions? We’re not going to ask how they’re going (so we don’t pile the pressure on) but what we’ll discuss are your marketing plans for the year. You may not have written them as resolutions, but you should have a general idea of what you’d like to achieve this year.
Here are insights from some of our strategy teams in Africa, and expert tips you should keep in mind as you begin to execute on strategy this year.
(PS: If you need clarity in your brand’s strategy, or a marketing partner to help bring your vision to life this year, we have a link for you at the end of this article)
Performance marketing
As budgets thin around the world and fewer funds are available for marketing, decision-makers will look for more ways to squeeze out more value from their marketing dollar. What does this mean for marketing efforts? 2023 will likely bring about more performance marketing activity on the marketing calendar. The key difference in performance marketing is that brands only pay for marketing activities that directly bring about a lead, sale or other agreed-upon action taken by a customer.
The reason businesses are turning to performance marketing is obvious. It will bring you the best bang for your buck. Here are a few performance marketing applications to double down on:
- PPC: Pay-per-click advertising means that you, the advertiser, only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This is a great way to pick up on leads from Google and social platforms like Facebook and is especially applicable to brands selling low-ticket physical items, but brands with relatively more expensive offerings will still find value from PPC advertising.
- Email marketing: Email marketing should already be a solid part of your marketing plan, regardless of the industry or business you operate in. Email marketing has been around for a long time and is still relevant today. Marketers who map out a strong email marketing strategy will find that they will reach new audiences, and gather high-quality leads at a relatively low cost.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM): SEO includes efforts to create content that answers the purchasing questions the target audience is asking on Google. This process requires some time to effectively propagate, from the creation of content to publishing and indexing, and then to ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Though it takes time, SEO is a rock-solid marketing investment that will continue to bring in leads in perpetuity.
SEM is more up your street if you need to begin already to see returns from your search engine initiatives. This is paid and will run until the expiration of the budget, but it is also effective in bringing in quality leads that can be nurtured and converted.
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence has come a long way. In the past, there have been speculations and predictions. However, with the launch of Open AI’s ChatGPT last November, artificial intelligence is set to take centre stage in conversations around marketing tools and plans. ChatGPT is able to answer marketing questions to a reasonable and often astounding degree of accuracy. Here are the top ways you can deploy artificial intelligence in your marketing plans this year:
- Content moderation and generation – AI technology is at the level where you can deploy it to create and moderate content, or at the very least, generate a strong scaffold for your writing. What this does is it increases the speed at which you can generate content and ultimately distribute it.
- Ad Targeting and Analysis – Specialized AI tools can help you do two things. Test your ad content before publishing and finetune your targeting, allowing you to use the historical ad data you have to get better results from your future campaigns.
- Social media listening and brand awareness – Because of the most recent improvements in AI tech, artificial intelligence systems can now understand context and intent, enabling them to run through huge amounts of data and provide an overview of your brand’s perception and the sentiments associated with your brand on the internet.
The big win with AI is its speed, and ability to save costs, which are both valuable, especially when budgets are tight. An exponential rise is predicted for this technology, because more and more people will pay more attention to AI, providing it with the constant and growing data source it needs to become more intelligent, and more helpful, not just in marketing but in most other use cases.
Conclusion
The themes of Artificial Intelligence and more stringent marketing budgets are clear and strong from these predictions. Positioning and prioritizing these newer trends will give marketers an edge, as the trends unfold even more in the coming months. We hope that the applications of these predictions will help to put your brand ahead of competing brands in your space this year.
Remember that link we promised? Click here. You can talk to any of our 6 experts, and experienced teams about your marketing plans, campaigns, and strategy. You’re in great hands. We’ve worked/are working with some of the continent’s biggest brands, helping them finetune their strategy, execution and campaigns, optimizing these steps for results that exceed their expectations.
How your brand can leverage the World Cup to connect with your target audience.
This article is part of Pulse Insights, our newsletter about marketing insights in Africa, bringing you strategy, insights, industry news and announcements to help you market better and sell more.
The World Cup will kick off in Qatar in November. If you’re a football fan, you’re already excited about this now. The 2022 World Cup hosted by Qatar is expected to be watched by 5 billion people around the world, according to FIFA president Gianni Infantino. Qatar itself predicts that over 1 million people will travel to the country to watch the games live.
No other sporting event has the international viewership the World Cup commands. A tournament of this magnitude, attracting more than 5 billion passionate pairs of eyeballs, is usually extremely attractive to brands. For most brands, even minimal exposure at the World Cup could bring in a significant increase in awareness and a flood of new leads. But achieving brand awareness and visibility at the World Cup is, quite understandably, out of reach for almost every brand and marketing department.
Unless you’re a global brand with a marketing war chest (this World Cup is forecast to have a $2bn ad spend, according to Bizcommunity), you’re not going to be able to showcase your brand during the much-coveted ad slots. So, how can your brand leverage the world cup to connect better with the audience you serve?
We’ve put together some actionable insights here. Regardless of what industry you’re in, you will find at least one of these tips valuable in the coming weeks, as the tournament approaches.
Insight 1
Find the intersection between footy lovers in your domain and your target audience.
Everyone watches football. That’s a good place to start. No matter how obscure your target market is, there’s a very high chance that at least 40% of that market will be football fans. This is where it would be useful to have a documented and hypersegmented view of your current audience. Depending on the size of the campaign you’re planning, it may help to also do a quick survey.
Knowing how much of your current and potential target audience is interested in football can help you determine how much of an investment you should make in a marketing campaign riding on the World Cup.
Insight 2
Create or join a passionate world cup-related initiative
It could be adopting a team at the world cup and creating content around the tournament from that perspective. Or sharing updates on the world cup on your social channels and giving detailed commentary, live shows on social, or a cheeky video of the CEO watching a game. The point of this would be to open your brand and show a human, passionate side. It’s amazing what these initiatives can do for brand perception in your audience’s heads, and these changes in how your brand is perceived could be seeds that you reap further down the road.
Insight 3
Prediction giveaways, either for only clients or for everyone in your digital community.
Everybody loves giveaways. People never forget about the time when they won something. They share that story for years and years. This insight can be further energised if the items you give away can stay with the winners for a long period and are not easily disposable, so instead of airtime for mobile phones, you can try branded items like mini bluetooth speakers, earpods, water bottles, and so on.
Insight 4
Get influencers involved.
Influencer marketing is word-of-mouth on steroids. Subject to brand positioning, brands can identify influencers within their market, people with a strong following, who are passionate about football, and get them to engage their digital communities at the World Cup. Brand messages can be communicated subliminally, or through (again) giveaways or engagement content. This method assures that the campaign is reaching an overall audience that is already engaged and committed to the influencer, meaning that there’s a much higher chance for your brand to benefit from that goodwill, and record new warm leads, more awareness and more conversion.
Conclusion
The World Cup is as clear an opportunity as any, for brands to excite, engage and connect with their audiences, no matter the size of the brand or the audience. Excitement and passion are great backgrounds on which to create lasting memories and impressions. Part of the ROI on these insights is new leads and maybe even some conversion, but the bigger return on investment would be the long-term relationships you build with footy fans, which you can always tap into for other campaigns.
Conjuring Creativity
Creativity in finding elegant solutions to a brand’s marketing problems can feel like magic when you get it right the first time. In the thick of a 2-minute brainstorming session, you pitch a somewhat weird concept, and after cleaning it up, the idea fits perfectly and receives the nod. It can feel magical.
But if you have been around creative teams for any stretch of time, you can tell that these ‘aha’ moments are not an expected part of a regular day at work. Creativity demands deep thinking, and often looking at the problem from many different angles, to find a solution that works and ticks all the right boxes. To add to this complexity is that sometimes, the marketing team needs to deliver a winning idea within a short period of time. IN such situations, the extra pressure could either produce a strikingly brilliant idea or, on the other end of the spectrum, a poor offering that can hardly be considered a solution.
Creative output is wonderful, and a delight for all who see the end product, but what happens on the back end? How can marketers learn to think about marketing problems, and trick their inner genius into producing brilliant creativity over and over again? What is the secret sauce?
Here are some tips to help you in your next brainstorming session:
Prepare your mind
In most other practises, thinking is usually done within the parameters of the practice. Doctors work within parameters of the field, and mathematicians understand that their exploration of the world is based on the fundamental principles and formulas of the discipline. In creative thinking for marketing, the only rule to remember is that there is no rule. As soon as you read and understand the problem statement, free your mind and give it the permission to wander.
Conduct research
Once you’ve accepted these parameters, you must identify the variables of the brainstorm, the main ones being a subject matter, the objectives, the target audience. Conducting research on these three main variables including a comprehensive look at the status of competitors or recent similar works should put anyone in a prime position to create magic.
Apply the knowledge
Once you have equipped yourself with the required level of knowledge, it is time to apply the aforementioned formula to the variables to find what we like to call ‘laser-thin lines’ that connect them. Consider precedents but ignore them. Apply common sense but feel free to ignore it too. Flip any thought that comes to mind backwards, forwards or sideways. Question the status quo, even when you know the answer is impossible. You’ll be surprised at what you might find at the end of that journey.
Creativity, in a lot of ways, can start as a horror show. But by using a formula and then (albeit counter-intuitively) not using a formula, it can end up as an epic fairytale.
Kwabena Oppon-Kusi
Head of Creative Strategy, Pulse GhanaEstablishing Brand Relevance
A few years ago, it was relatively easy for brands to establish and sustain relevance among their target audience. Now, a lot more is required. Globally, creative content creation is at an all-time high, and social media has become the global stage on which to share and highlight this. Staying relevant means that brands have to do more than post photos of conferences and team bonding nights. If you’re trying to reach a specific demographic, you have to become that demographic, by modeling their behaviour.
Here are a few ways we’re working with brands to transform or reinforce their relevance to their audiences:
1. Don’t just know the customer, know your target audience.
Your target audience is evolving. Their attention spans are changing, and they are on the internet discovering new things that fascinate them. They’re constantly making decisions about how they spend their time online. It is the job of the brand to know their audience deeply, to be able to meet them where they are, and share content with them that they will find interesting and engaging. A lot of this work will involve surveys, and keeping a close eye on social media and content trends.
Pulse has recorded repeated success with our online communities by providing recaps and summaries from their favourite reality shows. We noticed the spike in engagement when we shared content from the audience’s favourite reality shows, and aligned ourselves with that wave. As a brand, your content must find alignment between what your community is currently raving about, and your brand values.
You can establish your target audience on the basis of their interests, purchase intentions, demographics etc. Learn more about clarifying your target audience here.
2. Build a positioning statement
A positioning statement helps your team to get a sense of what you want to stand out for. Positioning also helps to clarify what exactly your audience values from your brand. For instance, your brand could be a lemonade brand, but the real reason people buy from you is that your operation is cruelty-free, and the lemons are organic.
Even if you have a positioning statement, it’s a good idea to go over the exercise again and remind the team about what’s important.
At Pulse, we have brand strategists in our teams who have worked with brands to clarify their positioning in the market and help them create and design brand collateral that reinforces this positioning, honing in on what their already existing audience loves about them, and attracting similar audiences.
Your positioning statement serves to make your product, focus and business super clear to your marketing team, to help them ideate better and more importantly, ideate in line with the objectives of the product, business or campaign.
Learn more about brand positioning statements here.
3. Build direct relationships with your audience
As a business, a big part of your marketing and branding strategy is to ensure that customers have pleasant interactions with you at every touchpoint where they meet you. This builds the brand reputation over time and increases brand value. The most frequent platform where customers will see your brand is on social media. Your social media platforms are not just something the company is required to have. They are an opportunity to warm the hearts of your already existing customers, while wooing others. Use this opportunity to your advantage.
Pulse undertakes social media management for brands and our strategy often involves delivering value to the community of people who care about what that brand has to say, by sharing knowledge, or exclusive footage. We can also use our vast network to increase the distribution of great content, get more prospective customers to see and engage with your brand, and lead to immediate and more long-term benefits.
You can engage your audience by creating opportunities for online interaction and even offline meets.
Read about engagement and audience connection here
Raising the relevance and value of your brand is not a goal that can be achieved overnight. However, there is no better time to start investing in brand building. As social media evolves and takes an even bigger chunk of people’s lives, (with sizable investments already going into the development of a metaverse) the brands that have built a strong social relevance will be the brands people trust enough to keep going back to.
Written by Vanessa Vifah & Kelechi Odoemelam.
Vanessa works at Pulse Ghana as Digital Strategist, helping to shape our strategy solutions for our client brands.
Leveraging local trends for brand growth
In the brand growth and marketing playbook, digital media has become the largest driver by far. It’s no longer a question of whether your brand should be on social media. It’s now a matter of how up-to-date your marketing team is with the latest ways to share content and the latest trending formats. Instagram recently announced that they will concentrate their focus on newer formats that are showing much higher engagement levels on the platform than static photos, namely, video (reels) and creators. They have also indicated that payouts might come next to outstanding creators. Combine this with the meteoric rise of TikTok and micro-video content, and you get a clear picture of the future of marketing, especially to young people.
Pulse sits at the nexus of culture and digital media and through the campaigns, we run and our digital community-building efforts, we have gained insights into driving growth for our partners by leveraging trends. Here are some tips to leverage local trends to drive growth:
1. Identify influential trends on social media
Keeping your target audience in mind, identify trends that get them to engage, react and comment actively and in large numbers. Being active and actively listening on social gives you an idea of what is popular and trending with your target. Some trends may be very spontaneous and will require you to be quick to jump onto them, while others can be anticipated and properly planned for, for example, Big Brother Naija, a reality TV show in Nigeria that has now become the biggest show in Africa. Overall, you need to be actively listening on social media to be able to pick up on these trend waves. Here are some tools that will help you identify trends that are generating engagement and are relevant to your target:
Google TrendsThis is perhaps the most expansive tool with which to track rising trends across all of the internet. You can pick up on a trend on a single social network, and use that information to predict that trend on another platform. This can help you prepare to ride the trend when it eventually hits other platforms. Simply set up Google Alerts for the keywords you want to keep an eye on.
TweetDeckThis tool is worth mentioning because Twitter is an important platform when we discuss the subject of trends. Twitter and now recently, TikTok is where most social trends originate. It is also where trending topics (which may originate from other networks and channels) get discussed the most. There is always an active conversation on Twitter on the world’s trending topics daily. Monitoring conversations on Twitter is then especially important. TweetDeck helps you monitor chosen hashtags and keep tabs on their popularity.
TikTok’s DiscoverThe Discover page on TikTok is an incredibly powerful tool for discovering what’s trending on TikTok. And what’s trending on TikTok spills over to other platforms with an increasing frequency. You can quickly jump on the biggest hashtags or find hashtags that are specific to your niche and create content for this. This way, your content can be shared, reshared, downloaded, and engaged with by the people you’re trying to reach.
CrowdTangleCrowdTangle is a public insights tool from Facebook that makes it easy to follow, analyze, and report on what’s happening with public content on social media. Among other powerful features, you can analyze trends across thousands of accounts over time and get insights into trend seasons, timing, etc. This tool can also be used to evaluate your own social media activity and compare it to similar accounts/competitors to give you clues about what is working, or not working.
2. Get a good handle/perspective
Having identified a trend to jump on, it is important to pay close attention to nuance and context and think about your angle carefully, especially in the light of the culture of your audience. All too often, there is the always present possibility of a backlash from the audience, if the perspective, timing, or visuals are not right. The key here is not to attract too much attention to the brand, but to be positioned as an ally of the crowd, either helping them access gated or exclusive content, or sharing packaged content they may have missed.
3. Amplification
When you’re jumping on a trend, you want to make sure that you get the word out and properly amplify your message.
For most brands, this may mean paid amplification across channels. At Pulse, however, we have a native digital community in each of our markets that is active and engaged. The benefit of brand partnerships with Pulse to leverage trends is that we provide this amplification to millions of young users across Africa with engaging content, allowing your marketing efforts to be noticed.
This year, for Big Brother Naija, we’re partnering with Showmax and DKT to provide coverage of the show and updates for many people who are not able to watch it all day. This partnership allows the brand’s involvement in such a mega trend to be seen and noticed by our millions of community members, and also provides a platform for the brand’s messages to reach the millions of people who will be watching the updates, benefiting from the partnership and being gently exposed to a new or recurring relationship with that brand.
If you’re interested in spotlighting your brand and taking advantage of the Big Brother Naija show, please reach out to us here
No matter what industry you are in, dialing into the social conversation and inserting your brand appropriately into these conversations can help you boost brand awareness, bringing you top-of-mind to your target, engagement, and ultimately, revenue. Paying attention to what your audience cares about and helping them connect more with it is a great way to build and/or strengthen relationships with them.
Youth Consumer Behaviour in Africa: Our Learnings
In 2015, there were 226 million youth (people aged between 15 and 24) in Africa, making up 19% of youth globally. By 2030, 42% of young people worldwide will be from Africa [UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs]. This means that Africa will have about 500 million young people by 2030, not accounting for normal global population growth. Currently, 60% of Africa’s population is under 25, making it the youngest continent in the world in relation to its population [Quartz].
To ensure marketing campaigns targeting under 30 year olds are impactful, it is crucial to understand who the youth really are, what their thoughts are, and perhaps most importantly, what factors contribute to their buying decisions.
With our focus on informing, engaging, and impacting the lives of young people both through our media and the marketing campaigns we execute for our clients, we are at the front seat when it comes to understanding and creating impactful content for young people. Here are some key insights we have gathered about their interests and behaviour.
1. The internet and social media are their primary source of information and content consumption
While internet penetration across the continent is rapidly growing, the internet and specifically social media have become the main source of information and content consumption for young people who access it. A street survey across Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya with over 2,000 respondents of under 30 year olds, showed that social media is the main touchpoint for news and content consumption for a majority of them. This also fits with the social media consumption patterns reported by We Are Social & Hootsuite’s yearly State of Digital report with social media users from Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya spending over 3h daily on social media on average, compared to a global average of 2h25.
Our findings also show that they want content that is quick to consume and gets straight to the point. Many users drop off watching or reading content as soon as they are less engaged. In terms of format, video is by far the preferred medium for young users.
Here is what some young Lagosians had to say about social media:
2. A youth with ambition and aspirations
When it comes to saving and spending behaviour of young people, a notable trait is that they are aspiring to secure financial safety in an overall difficult economic context. Many young people dare to dream big and set ambitious financial goals for themselves.
This means that while being cost-conscious, there is a rapidly growing market for products (and campaigns) that appeal to the aspirations and goals of the youth. Excluding South Africa, a growing middle class in Sub-Saharan Africa is spending over $400 million per day [Google]
But young people are also saving for the future. A survey run by our team in Ghana revealed that 80% of under 30 year olds have a saving goal they are working towards.
We asked Lagosians about their saving goals, here is what they had to say:
3. Marketing that resonates with young people
To capture this growing market, brands that have powerful storytelling and are capable of building communities around their products are in a strong position. Users having grown up with the rise of digital expect to be able to interact and associate with their favourite brands online.
When creating content strategies and campaigns, we craft them around three key storytelling principles that are crucial to engage young users:
- they should touch their emotions
- users should be able identify with the stories told
- the content created should add value by giving valuable information to users
Here are some marketing campaigns that stood out to the young people we asked in Lagos:
4. Online shopping is gaining traction
Young users are increasingly open to purchasing products online. These purchases are however for the most part limited to small ticket items, as trust is relatively low and users are not willing to risk large amounts on products they cannot test or see in person before buying.
An area we are seeing strong growth in is social media shopping. The number of products being sold on platforms such as Instagram and the number of sellers on these platforms is rapidly increasing. We have identified the following three reasons for this emergence:
- Setting up a social media page and starting to sell is incredibly easy: platforms are making it easy to set up an account, run very targeted ads for low amounts of money, and services such as Flutterwave store and Paystack storefront enable businesses to create an online shop with payment integration in minutes
- Social media’s community aspect ensures that good products get trusted recommendations and reviews that other buyers can rely on. Every person recommending a product becomes a micro-influencer for the brand it supports.
- Social media platforms make it incredibly easy and cheap to create visually appealing and relatable content that gives a good idea about the products and sellers – from videos showing product use cases to pictures of the business and team behind the product.
Here is what our respondents in Lagos had to say about buying products on Instagram:
To conclude, we believe that the consumption preferences and interests young people display across Africa are not only an indicator of what is to come but are also key insights to already take into account when planning campaigns that should speak to a large audience. With our channels, we have a direct touchpoint with millions of young people every day across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Sénégal. We use this to draw insights and recommendations that inform the marketing campaigns we run for our partners. If you are looking for a partner to support your next marketing campaign, reach out to us here.
What we learned from using TikTok for brand campaigns in Africa
TikTok, the video streaming social network, was already gaining traction around the world before the Covid pandemic. The aftermath of the global lockdown, for this platform, was quite literally an explosion in adoption around the world, including Africa.
In January 2018, TikTok had about 54 million monthly active users. By January 2021, there were about 689 million TikTok users [Source]. Also, TikTok users spend an average of 850+ minutes per month on the app [Source].
When one of our leading clients in Ghana was looking to connect with the Gen-Z demographic, we had been thinking about TikTok for a while already, but now we were sure.
One major rule of inbound marketing is distribution, and for a Gen Z-focused brand, being where the audience was, meant making a move to TikTok.
And oh, what a move it was.
TikTok is new grounds – new in the sense that there was no way of predicting how the response would be, how to hyper-target as we would on Facebook and the likes, or even generally, how to go about it.
Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube will use words like ‘connect’, ‘community’, ‘communicate’, ‘listen’, ‘share’ which is an idealistic vision for most social media platforms. But with TikTok, their mission statement is clear – to exploit an unadulterated and shameless goal to entertain.
So, what did we learn?
1. No amount of research will prepare you for it
You can read all the articles that tout “how to do TikTok” for brands, but you can’t be ready for how to do TikTok for brands in the West African context. You have to take a deep dive and apply everything you know.
And as I would put it, it’s “either you drink deep or you taste not” on TikTok – a half-baked approach will surely mean wasted efforts and investments.
2. Use the “Creators”, not the supposed “Influencers”
The massive Gen Z demographic on TikTok, grew up being exposed to hundreds of ads a day (and influencer marketing) and therefore are almost immune to them. This is a generation that will engage with content that aligns with their personal interests, and their personal interests alone. The new generation cannot be wooed by fancy videos or sales-y displays. They have a strong radar for almost immediately knowing when they’re being sold to. And if they think they are, they’ll leave.
We learned this the hard way. Our initial foray in the space saw us using “verified” influencers, but the impact was not as strong as it was when we decided to use a “loved creator” to tell our brand story.
3. Be entertaining and let your be brand subtle
On TikTok, users are going to do things differently with your brand. Things you didn’t know could be done with your brand. If you’re a condom brand, your content using the condom as balloons might be your best-performing, if you’re a rice brand, putting a phone in rice might be the break to go viral.
We’ve found that brand-sponsored content typically performs worse, even on popular creators’ profiles, because this particular audience is more aware and unfazed by ads. The aim here would be to create content that is very relatable to your target audience, and somehow find a way to communicate in the story the usefulness of your brand, while entertaining the audience. If you create a TikTok video, collaborating with a creator, and slap your logo at the end, you will get some views. Just don’t expect massive engagement and/or conversion.
4. Focus on your (or a) niche community
Find your little pockets of highly engaged people on TikTok. This is the way to go on a platform that doesn’t promote the mass-communication that you’d see on other popular platforms.
Normally, one would expect this to mean less reach but a higher engagement rate, but the reach and impression statistics of niche content are phenomenal on TikTok compared to any other platform.
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TikTok is the place where Gen Z goes to play (right now), so if you have a brand or product focused on this group, that’s a hot tip for you. But remember it’s not easy to keep the attention of the group of people with the shortest attention spans (the average Gen-Z attention span is eight seconds, four seconds less than Millennials. – Sparks & Honey). They are interested in multicultural and diverse subject areas more than any other generation. You have to dig deep. But they are also the most important target group for most brands to engage today. Gen Z is always changing their consumer habits. They soak up the latest and greatest apps, trends, and social platforms making it a consistent race for brands to keep up and innovate first.
As a business in Africa getting into the world of TikTok, understand that it’s not business as usual. On TikTok, you’re not a C-suite marketing executive. You’re a niche creator, deeply passionate about using media to change the world. TikTok says of its platform:
“Our user-generated content environment creates an atmosphere of authentic discovery. The constantly refreshed For your feed is algorithmically tailored to personal preference, allowing users to spontaneously discover new products – so a new favourite brand or a beloved purchase is only a swipe away.” You can find more insights into how to navigate TikTok as a business in this newly released business guide by TikTok.
Want to find out how TikTok could work for your brand? Let’s get talking here.
The Future of Marketing in Africa: Digital trends in 2021 and beyond
In this article, our expert team at Pulse is sharing six key trends shaping online user behaviour across Africa going forward – and ways your digital marketing strategy can leverage the changing environment.
1. Covid-19 has accelerated and shifted consumer behaviours permanently.
The pandemic has prompted many users to try new ways of consuming content and shopping. We expect these consumption shifts to outlast the pandemic, as they are an acceleration of behaviours that started emerging pre-pandemic.
To illustrate this, McKinsey’s survey of Nigerian consumers during the pandemic shows that 46% of respondents tried a new digital shopping method since the start of the pandemic, leading to a growth in consumers shopping online of 30% to 65% depending on the category of items purchased.
The discovery of these new shopping options is led by three main channels:
- Online ads (33%)
- Recommendation from family and friends (23%)
- Seeing someone talk about it on social media (18%)
With these discovery channels, a strong digital ad strategy as well as generating discussions on social media by engaging users and working with influencers is more important than ever. These channels are equally accessible to small businesses and larger brands, giving the opportunity to new products to grow fast online.
In terms of content consumption, social media remains by far the main touchpoint for online users in our region. According to We Are Social and Hootsuite’s Yearly Digital Report, Nigerians, Ghanaians, and Kenyans spend on average three and a half hours on social media per day, compared to two and a half hours on average globally. In Nigeria alone, 6 million people joined social media networks for the first time in 2020.
2. Snackable video content is no longer an option, but a must.
With the rising time spent on social media, video has become a must to successfully engage users. New video formats have taken the lead with the emergence of platforms like TikTok and the adoption of competing products such as reels on Instagram.
These short, snackable video formats can be leveraged by brands that are not afraid to be authentic and willing to develop new ways of communicating with their audiences. You can check out Pulse Nigeria’s TikTok channel to see how we have found new ways of telling the news on the channel.
In order to get started with these formats, we recommend collaborating with creators that have mastered the language of TikTok. These formats are also the perfect medium for user-generated content competitions thanks to their ease of use in creating videos with specific sounds, filters, and effects.
3. Social media influencers connect with your future consumers organically.
With the emergence of more social media platforms & the growth of the existing ones, we are seeing the rise of a new type of testimonial: the social media influencer / creator.
Whereas the general popularity of a celebrity has an impact on its influence on social media, we are seeing an increasing shift towards a new generation of influencers that have become popular thanks to their exceptional content creation skills, authenticity and virality.
They have often mastered the art of storytelling on social media and can become strong partners to co-create content with brands.
A subset of these influencers is known as micro-influencers: This new generation of smaller, but keenly followed creators has become more and more popular among fans and marketers: their loyal subscribers are more willing to actively engage with their – and as a partner, your – content. As the smaller influencers tend to occupy more specific market segments, they have an easier time to attract audiences who are genuinely interested in your product or service as long as it fits their niche. This increases conversion and ROI.
Choosing a strong content, management and analytics partner for such campaigns can help reduce administrative burden and keep your own focus on the message you want to deliver.
4. Build direct channels to your consumers, get first-party data and do more with it!
With a general shift towards privacy online, relying on data from Facebook, Google, and other large platforms will not be enough. Users are willing to share their data with brands they love and trust – when they understand the value they can get out of it.
By building a strong first-party data strategy, brands can build a direct communication channel with their users, learn about their needs, and delight them by improving their products and services through this direct relationship.
A first step to do so can be newsletters and SMS campaigns with offers – using existing client databases. Asking for feedback helps you learn what users appreciate most.
5. User-generated content attracts your audience authentically.
As the name suggests, user-generated content (UGC) is created by your customers and users. Therefore, this material has no direct brand intervention, and its format can be completely different: comments on the brand’s own publications, text and video publications on the user’s own social networks, comments on blogs and professional publications, as well as ratings. Consumers often trust the recommendation of other consumers far more than the ads by the company itself. approach
On social media and on platforms such as Tripadvisor, Twitter and Google Maps, it is one of the most authentic forms of digital word-of-mouth marketing, making it a great way to make brands more accessible and recognizable. Old trends, new perspectives: We know that this type of content is not entirely new. Verbal advertising has always existed, but the social distancing rules and restrictions that everyone faces this and last year have led to a massive increase in UGC. Since many consumers cannot meet and test the product in person, they will check the reviews to determine whether the product is the right decision.
Having a strategy around this phenomenon in a digital-first environment is crucial. While the content is user-generated, a well-placed request for ratings on a platform or a promotion requesting for audience submissions are just two ways that companies can accelerate it.
6. Sell on social media.
Some recent changes in social media globally have allowed many companies to use their social media profiles as direct sales channels:
With the release of sales catalogs on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, large companies are starting to take social commerce seriously. By 2022, social commerce will become one of the biggest digital marketing trends globally. While the sales catalogs are not live yet in Africa (we will keep you updated!), social can already be used for strong lead generation. Many online shoppers go through social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram or Youtube to research your products and ultimately buy.
Therefore, selling your brand, products and services on social media is more important than ever. Adding a simple link to an online shop to your social media or highlighting ways to get the product customers can see make this a simple exercise. When a simplified shopping experience is provided to buyers, they are more likely to buy. These and other social commerce strategies allow brands to optimize their shopping experience across multiple channels and platforms.
What is your next move?
The digital marketing trends that we have listed here are not exhaustive. Nonetheless, just by devoting more resources to social media and research around the topics, you undoubtedly will have a better starting point for planning strategic possibilities. The shared hot trends can help you attract more website visits, more potential customers and more sales. At the same time, they can ensure that your customer base is kept up to date. These trends are also important to help you better understand expectations for years to come and how they will affect your broader competitive landscape. And of course: you can get in touch with us if you need a sparring partner to determine your next steps!
If you would like our team to help you with your marketing, send us an email here.
Nigeria – [email protected]
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Kenya – [email protected]
Senegal – [email protected]
Content Marketing on LinkedIn for B2B Companies
If you operate a B2B company, LinkedIn offers opportunities to connect to new audiences and organizations that you are likely not fully maximizing. Content Marketing is alive and well on LinkedIn, the world’s largest platform for business networking. While the platform is primarily designed for B2B interaction, both B2B and B2C companies can benefit from engaging and sharing with the LinkedIn timeline.
Long- and Short-form publishing
LinkedIn lets you publish and promote blogs directly on the platform. This feature allows you to connect more with your LinkedIn audience and also increase the reach of your articles short-form content, however, seems to perform better and receive more engagement than longer blogs. So a great strategy here would be to create short updates with insights from a longer article and link to it. That way, you can maximise the attention on that update and use it to drive more eyeballs to the blog.
Video
Video content across all social platforms has recorded a much higher engagement rate than written content and images, and the story is no different on LinkedIn. For most people, it is easier to grasp something when they see a video about it, and it does not require a lot of effort. Video content should be a crucial part of your LinkedIn strategy. It can drive more engagement and naturally will garner a greater reach. Also go a step further to design videos that speak to the target directly, to fully maximise the reach you will get from video content.
Share again
If your company has an active blog, then LinkedIn is a great way to reshare all of that relevant knowledge and get more people to see it. Not only does this establish you as a leader in the niche, it also brings new prospective clients from your LinkedIn community to your company website. If you have a conversion tool at the end of each blog post (like an invitation to subscribe to your company newsletter, or a button to request a quote), this can work very well as a lead generation tool.
As with all content marketing channels, the first thing to keep in mind is your target audience. B2B businesses are always looking to target the decision-makers in prospective client and partner companies. Keep this in mind as you create and distribute content across the different channels available to you. This way, you can be sure that your content marketing efforts are going in the right direction.