Social media is all the craze in Nigeria. For a wide variety of reasons, individuals have become obsessed with the need to share media, discover new resources, comment on happenings and connect with each other several times every minute via three major platforms: BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook and Twitter.
On the other hand, the majority of business organisations here are not even remotely close to harnessing the power of social media the way non-corporate entities have so effortlessly done, often completely oblivious to its proven capacity to enhance customer experience and cut communication costs. And even where some businesses have seemingly elected to follow the trends and superficially setup shop online, their halfhearted efforts aren’t fooling anyone.
Long gone are the days when organisations running a Twitter account passively or managing a Facebook Fan Page noncommittally could pass themselves off as being social media savvy and cutting edge. Consumers need, no, demand by-the-minute engagement, and businesses that fail to meet that demand often wake up to find their brands bowed low under the weight of negative sentiment and their public image battered beyond recognition.
Nonetheless, in this same Nigerian social media climate, there are superstars – organisations that have successfully leveraged social media to improve their business, flourishing either because of early adoption or because the nature of their business (eg media, telecomunication and ecommerce) has forced them to pursue excellence in the deployment of social media tools to achieve their corporate ends. Here’s a roundup of five of the most outstanding organisations on the Nigerian social media scene.
1. MTN
Few companies the world over have been maligned the way this adopted South African telecoms giant has, with mobile subscribers taking it to the cleaners in social circles every day, sometimes over legitimate gripes with the service it provides (or fails to provide) but more often just because they can. Negatively impactful as that constant flow of abuse is, it has kept MTN on its toes and driven the company to maintain a high level of social media engagement with subscribers on its huge network, a standard that its competitors have been hard pressed to match. MTN gets high marks for effectively using social media as a customer service/customer pacification platform.
Klout* Score: 73 (of 100)
Twitter followers: Over 145,000
Facebook fans: Over 794,000
*A widely accepted measure of influence across social networks.
2. iROKTV
(Just so we’re clear, although it doesn’t offer much in terms of networking, YouTube is smack in the middle of social media. Period.) After four years of buying rights to music videos and creating its own original content by crawling events, iROKTV is well ahead in Nigeria’s YouTube ‘hustle’. While its subscriber strength is still in the few thousands, iROKTV’s consistency and the quality of its uploads have helped it leverage the YouTube platform in a way that most other Nigerian organisations can only dream of, and it’s poised to grow even larger as more people latch onto the service.
Number of subscibers: Over 3,400
Video views: Over 2 million
3. Nigeria Newsdesk
Chopping the news into bite-sized pieces for quick consumption is something perfectly suited for Twitter, and that’s where Nigeria Newsdesk has excelled phenomenally. Pushing breaking news, top stories and assorted news to its over 245,000 followers every few minutes, Nigeria Newsdesk has built a solid reputation and become the go-to for Nigerian news and information.
Klout Score: 79 (of 100)
Number of Twitter followers: Over 245,000
4. Naij.com
Naij.com aggregates a variety of (mostly) Nigerian content, and is easily Nigeria’s top news aggregator blog. With over 366,000 news-hungry souls to feed every day on Facebook alone, Naij.com provides concrete evidence that content is king.
Number of Facebook fans: Over 366,000
5. Gidi Traffic
Great things start small, like Gidi Traffic. Curating traffic info through Twitter, sending out updates on demand and helping city dwellers find their way across the Lagos metropolis, one would be hard pressed to find a more efficient non-commercial use of social media anywhere in the world.
Klout Score: 70 (of 100)
Number of Twitter followers: Over 35,000
