The Importance Of Social Media Sites In The Future Of Advertising In Nigeria.

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“The advertising industry is relentlessly inventive, that’s what we do” (sic)

Rupert Howell. Chairman of the London arm of McCann Erikson.

As at 2013, online sales in Nigeria through social media network were worth 3 billion dollars. Apparently, there are 600 million more people who own a mobile phone and have access to the internet and ultimately the social media compared to those who own a toothbrush. The research revealed there are 4.8 billion mobile users as at 2010 but only 4.2 billion people with a toothbrush. I guess it means every mobile should be sold with a toothbrush to ensure close encounters are engaging and pleasant in our society, technically the internet has taken over the globe to the detriment of essential utilities.

The above statistics are merely a bench mark for the assertion I will be making in this article. So, what are the key terms here? Social Media and Advertising; Social media represents low cost tools that are used to combine technology and social interaction with the use of words, pictures and all sort of semiotics. These tools are typically internet or mobile based, a few that you have probably heard of include: Twitter, Face book, YouTube etc. A scholar simply said “it is an unobtrusive two way communications”. While, Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media. 

Advertising is a tool used to inform potential customers. It is important to know that the advertising industry is a vast one, in fact Nigeria’s advertising industry has witnessed tremendous growth especially in recent times thanks to the advent of new technologies especially social media. Advertising in Nigeria could be dated back to 1859 via news-paper; Rev. Henry Townsend’s (IWE IROYIN). The emergence of different technologies further nurtured the growth of advertising in Nigeria and the world general.

            As ever before, the debate of the industry has centered on the best way to achieve results,  which brings me back to my facts and figures on social media: the idea that if Face book  were to be a country it will be way bigger than Nigeria , as it houses over 1.23 billion users as at January 2014. Face book as continue to innovate and evolve, the last 12 months have seen the new time line introduced, brand pages as well as the purchase of Instagram and the mobile app platform, monthly active users now total 850 million users, 20% of all page views on the web are on Face book, 425 million active mobile users, 2.7 billion likes per month, interestingly 57% users are female. What about Twitter? Twitter is regarded as the enigma of social media fraternity with its usefulness questioned by a lot of people, yet scholars assert it’s simplicity and immediacy as the key to its geometric growth  , but do you know there are 465 million accounts again bigger than Nigeria , 175 million tweets  a day.

            LinkedIn  started in 2003 as a professional business social network and as at 2014 there are over 300 million members according to the press release from LinkedIn , 60% of the members live outside USA in 2011 alone  there were 4.2 billion professional oriented searches on LinkedIn platform; YouTube is affiliated to videos, so many brands outside and within Nigeria have seized on its power  to be a viral media that augments traditional advertising media such as television. YouTube’s advantage is its availability and ubiquity. It is the world second largest search engine after Google; it may surprise you that it has 2 billion views per day. I can go and on, with the likes of Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Myspace etc. All these statistics are meant to make obvious and absolute the importance of social media in the future of advertising in Nigeria , this facts and figures justifies the claim that social media is very strategic to the growth of the advertising  company not only a developing country like Nigeria but also the world.

A novelist once said “you can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements”, Nigeria’s ideals and belief system varies from place to place: the North is mostly Muslims, the South is mostly Christians, influx of young and old, rural and urban, Ibo, Yoruba and Hausa; each group share different world view, thus the advertising industry in Nigeria must be deft and sensitive. The future is already here, most Nigerians spend less time reading the newspaper but they check mails, update Face book status, tweet trending topics. In fact social media have become a melting point for Nigerian elite, a haven of some sort. 

Social media is a global village, do I need to emphasize its immediacy, responsiveness and reliability for feed backs as opposed to the one-way immobile media like radio, newspaper, television etc. the social media is not just important to the future of advertising in Nigeria, since the whole world is getting digital, it is the bridge that will take the advertising industry in Nigeria past the miry clay of disorientation and ineffectiveness.