In 2017, the Director-General of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, SMEDAN, Dr. Umaru Radda, said that only one out of 100 Nigerian graduates is employable, as a result of poor skills and lack of entrepreneurial competence.
Apart from the traditional online sale of goods and services, these new breeds of entrepreneurs are also sustaining decent lifestyles as shop owners, brand influencers, bloggers, and social media commentators just to mention a few. Interestingly, their stories are as varied as their faces are. Upon the completion of her national service, Laba, in 2013 was employed by the Ministry of Science and Technology, where she worked at the local council level. “I stopped making hair to focus on my job, even though the pay was very poor. Two years later, there was a massive retrenchment of staff and I was among that cut-off.
Laba added: “Now, the social media is like my shop, and indeed the platform from which I link up with my clients. Also, through social media, I have met and made hair for some celebrities, including actresses and scriptwriters. I styled two scriptwriters’ hair for the last AMVCA Awards. Both of them got my contact through social media.”
She continued: “My husband is an employee who leaves home very early in the morning only to return at night. As we were just starting our family, he reasoned that if I rented a shop, I would spend a larger part of my time there, daily, and this would be to the detriment of our young and much dependent children.
“While doing all these, I did not have any social media account, nor was I interested because I was not a social media person until a friend told me I could sell my products on social media, which was just Facebook at the time. The turn out was not so great because I did not know anything about Google ad sense, or Facebook advertising, etc. But I later got used to tapping the benefits of social media.
He added that the training was in collaboration with SheLeads Africa, a representative of Facebook. He said: “What we intend to achieve is to actualise what we have always promised them, financial and non-financial transactions. This is one of the non-financial transactions and we know that if they succeed in their businesses, it will trickle down to us, and at the end of it all, we are sure it will rub-off on their businesses positively.
The featured entrepreneurs are Tricia Ikponmwonba of TriciaBiz, Samiah Oyekan-Ahmed of The Gift Source, Oluwatoyin Onigbanjo of Augustsecrets, and Gina Ehikodi-Ojo of Foodies and Spice. The influence of social media is rising by the day. Apart from being a social platform, an increasing number of businesses are now using them to reach their clients as well as win new ones leveraging on their potential as tools for economic development.
Areas such as education, politics, religion, health communication, and so on have also experienced the awesome power of the social media, and this is visible in their dynamic civic engagement, which they bring to bear, especially in socio-political matters A telecoms expert, Kehinde Aluko, said social media enables interaction, and by engaging in conversation, “you’ll gain exposure on social channels and increase credibility by getting your customers to refer your brand, or talk about their experience with your company.”
With an estimated population of over 200 million people, StatCounter, a global statistics platform, informed that as of October 2020, Facebook has 55.13 per cent penetration in Nigeria. Speaking on how the social media has helped boost her business, the Chief Executive Officer, Zebelle Curls Natural, a natural hair care brand, Faith Adetunji, affirmed that the social media has helped her brand a lot, describing it as the new word of the mouth marketing, where clients are eager to see what you have to offer.
Essentially, Teniola said social media, since the advent and popularity of Facebook, has been a platform used mostly for entertainment, infotainment, and connecting with family and friends.