Creating A Market Place With Technology

In my last post, the NCC urged Nigerians youths to use the social media as an alternative to creating job opportunities. A lot of people underestimate the power of social media and in fact, some condemn those who use the social media. Social networking sites like Facebook (which is the most common) was created to be like a community for connecting with people. However, many teenagers and youths abused its use, thereby leading to gory news such as kidnap and theft cases. If you are wondering how you can use social media to your advantage, you can grab a coffee and read along. 

Facebook is not the only means to connect with so many people; there are also forums and blogs. The reality is that people are having less physical communication in exchange for data consumption. So, don’t lag behind, take advantage. You probably had to go through an entrepreneurship course- it’s time to explore. As many presuppose, entrepreneurship is not limited to learning a trade. It can be anything, so long as you are the sole proprietor. If you have a blog or a website, how can you attract a targeted traffic? If you make hair or wigs, write, paint, cook, or whatever ability, how do you sell your skill to the social community? Here are a few steps:

Be an active member of social media

Some people think that those who spent a lot of time on social media have no jobs. In a digital world, you don’t have to dress in a three-piece suit, five days in a week. No! you can do your business from the comfort of your home. So, be an active member on Facebook, so you can get ‘noticed’. Being an active member doesn’t mean making vague posts all the time- your audience will be bored if you do this. Insightful posts and comments in the groups you belong will attract people to your profile naturally and to your business whenever you decide to advertise. Make sure it’s not a random group that doesn’t correlate with the services you have to offer. There are many groups on Facebook that address peculiar needs- health, business, sports, etc. 

Join a forum

A forum is an online site where people hold conversations in form of what is popularly known as ‘threads’.  The most popular forum in Nigeria is Nairaland which has over 1.8 million registered members. It has subsections, such as entertainment, religion, business, investment, autos, job and vacancies and much more. Every registered member can have a signature, which is visible after every comment or thread you make. A signature is a feature that allows you to have a certain piece of text that appears each time you drop a comment or create a thread. Having a signature is a good opportunity to promote your website and drive targeted traffic to your business if used properly. You can make yourself more relevant to the section that matters to you and create threads that will render help to people and this way, you will naturally attract other readers to click your signature.

Sponsor a paid advert

If your business doesn’t have an online presence, it may become extinct. So, if you can afford it, sponsor your page to reach more audience and to do this effectively, increase your campaign budget, decrease your regional and streamline the targeted age, so that your campaign can be appropriately covered. This is specifically for those who may want to use the traffic from Facebook to convert. You can also place adverts on forums, such as Nairaland. The different sections make it easier to reach the desired target.

The mistake a lot of entrepreneurs make is to play the game the wrong way. Being active on social media doesn’t mean waking up and sleeping off on Facebook or dropping comments on every thread you see on the forum. Once you have created your thread or dropped your insightful post, log out. The social media and forums were created to connect people together and not to sell like some sort of online shop. Let it remain this way. If you go dropping posts about your business, disregarding the discussion at hand, you can be sure to have cyber warlords come for your head.

You can see that technology is aimed at making life easy. But remember this: conversion isn’t going to be spontaneous because Rome wasn’t built in a day.