If you are reading this post, there are chances that you are longing to become a celebrity. That is a good place to be because a personality is built out of interest. Just before I get started with this influencer marketing business, I love to appreciate you for staying around since my last post update. If you are new here then feel most welcome.
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With that preamble, you must be ready to learn how you can start an Influencer Marketing Business in Kenya, is it so? Let’s get started.
Starting an Influencer Marketing Business in Kenya
Influencer marketing involves the marketing of products or services that leverages the popularity, expertise, or reputation of an individual. Influencer marketing is often associated with those who have large social media followings, but popularity should not be confused with influence. Influence has the power to change consumer perceptions or get their audience to do something different.
There are two ways you may want to approach this online business idea. One, become a brand of your own online or start an influencer marketing agency.
let’s cover both starting with building a personal brand.
Method 1: Becoming an influencer as a brand
By this I mean, that it will be your personal profile people will see and follow you. In essence, you will become a celebrity who is associated with certain products. People will follow you to get advice or mentorship or entertainment and in the process you make them learn about a product or service and you may be paid to offer to them that information.
A good example is Daniel Ndambuki; popularly known as Churchill. He is a renowned Kenyan comedian with over 2M social media followers. At times brands contact to have him advertise their products to his followers. Him being in the laugh industry, he can easily influence his followers on anything that matters art.
Also, based on his social status, he can influence followers to have a different perspective of products and services. For example; if he takes a photo of his well-done hair with a “killer” cut then captions it “my barber is better than yours, call +254 7 XXXXXXX to get your hair done.” definitely the phone of the advertised barber will be jammed with calls.
And Churchill will be paid by the barber for the post made.
And so, for you to get started as an influencer, there are key things you need to put in mind to help you become successful. let’s look at them quickly:
1. Find a niche you are passionate about.
A niche is a topic that best describes what you will be doing online. The influence will come after whatever you are doing grabs the attention of the public. This could be dancing, singing, gyming, pranking, etc.
Therefore, before you even think about how much money you are going to be making as an influencer, think about what you will be offering to your followers. Ask yourself these questions. Am I passionate about what am doing? As in can I still do it if not paid? Does it give any value to my audience? Do I have enough knowledge about what I want to do? if your answer is yes, go right ahead.
2. Build a social media profile
You also need to be conversant with a social media platform and build your profile on it. Well, you do not have to be a graduate in matters of the particular app. But you need some basic knowledge on how to post your content and publicize it.
Choose a specific social media platform to start with. You can do simple research on what type of audience use which social media most and then contrast the information with what you intend to offer then settle on one before scaling to other social media platforms.
Let your profile speak more of the content you are delivering than the money you intend to make out of it.
Below are the top five social media apps you can use in your influencer marketing business
TikTok is good for Gen Z who love short videos. TikTok is very categorical on the physical appearance of the publisher so if you opt for the same. You will have to work on your outer looks (beauty).
Facebook Groups & Pages are of all ages. Groups are great to drive organic traffic first while pages will allow your features such as paid advertising. Facebook advertising is actually the cheapest as of now so far. If you take your time to learn the art, you really can make some good money out of it.
Youtube is also for a general audience but you can tweak the target audience of your channel from settings. Getting youtube traction isn’t as easy as on Facebook pages and groups.
Twitter is a nice place to grow. This app can make you a celebrity overnight. All you need is to understand trends and how to tap into them to popularise your content.
Instagram is also a nice place to be for video content and image content. One thing I dislike about this app is that it does not support link posts. but its a great app.
People make the common mistake of creating accounts with 2, 3, …7 social media accounts and try to grow and maintain all of them at the same time. That is the start of your failure. As a beginner, do not divide your efforts, focus on a single platform first, once you have mastered it and grown its audience enough, only then should you scale.
3. Build your audience
In social media, you win only when you got numbers. Therefore, start working on a plan to keep your numbers growing daily. A plus one notification is always a great achievement for any influencer.
Spare time daily, a few hours to promote your content and profile so that you can get noticed. Unlike a few years ago when a profile could easily be noticed after creation, today we got over 5 billion active social media accounts that you need to outdo and be on the front page. This bespeaks of efforts, right?
We all started from zero, and grow. Just a little more time and your profile will be ready to make money for you.
4. Be consistent
Even as you promote your profile and content. You ought to be consistent in publishing content to your profile. Avoid procrastination that leads to not doing what you were supposed to in the right time frame.
Your audience needs to know when they can expect new content from you, only until then, you will be viewed as a joker in the industry.
5. Go get clients
Once you have built an audience of at least 1,000 subscribers or followers that are engaging. You can now start sourcing for clients online even as you continue working on the growth of your profile. Remember you got another influencer at 10 million followers and you are at 1,000 so you still got to keep working. Does that make sense?
To get clients, you also will need to do an internet search or still on the social media platform you are building on, you can find prospects from groups and send to them a message.
Also, you can build a profile on freelance sites such as up work and shout cart you can click here to see some of the Kenyan influencers on Upwork. You can model a profile of one that is successful.
NB: Always study the terms of use of the platform you are using to avoid falling into a snare and unknowingly breaching their laws. This could cause an account ban or suspension. That is a bad place to have your account found after the hard work you just put in and time.
Method 2: Building An Influencer Agency In Kenya
In this case, you will not be the influencer but rather you will link influencers to brands that need influencers to promote their products and services. The truth you may have not known is that most companies out there are adjusting their advertising strategy and most of them are having their compasses directed to influencers.
But the problem is finding the right and verified influencer with a real audience that promises and really delivers positive results. Definitely, no CEO will be ready to dish out money to unauthentic influencers to avoid wasted budgets.
on the other hand, as a start-up influencer, you will definitely find it quite challenging to find a business or company that is ready to pay and try you if you can deliver.
And this is where an influencer agency comes in. The agency will act as an intermediary between the influencers and the advertising clients. Your agency will take advertising orders from clients and then you will have your subscribed influencers to promote and deliver the client’s order.
To build an influencer agency:
You need to be conversant with social media marketing and got a few colleagues you can work with as partners in your company. You then can discuss and after an MOU, you can go ahead and register the company as an advertising agency. This could cost you around 18,000/-
To register the company, you can visit any Huduma center offices and you will be served accordingly.
Next, build a website to outline the services of the company, build your social media presence and contact some influencers to join the platform. Installing a referral program or an incentive program could help ease the marketing of the company.
Finally, with all tools of work set. You can go right ahead and find clients and start advertising for them.
Below are the top 5 influencer agencies in Kenya
you can modal any of these brands. But remember, I did not say you copy. If you copy you risk a chance of spending part of your life in jail or paying a penalty. Just modal, make improvements to the new brand and share it with the public. That is how people become CEOs. Does that make sense?
1. Medios
Medios focuses on providing data-driven and creative influencer marketing services. It offers a full-service influencer solution that combines a proprietary technology platform, industry insights, and diligent processes to deliver consistent quality content and ROI. They have a mission to scale the storytelling process through efficiency, quality, and transparency for both advertisers and content creators.
2. GrowthPad Digital
Growthpad Digital is an influencer marketing and Digital Marketing agency, representing social media influencers and brands on the most visual social media channels of Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. It focuses on being an agency for companies wanting to engage in influencer marketing in Kenya.
3. Vigil Marketing
Vigil is a Digital Marketing and influencer marketing agency. They offer a full range of marketing services – from strategy development to its execution like Influencer Marketing and Performance-Based Advertising.
4. Wowzi
Wowzi is an end-to-end platform connecting social media influencers and advertisers. The platform manages influencer campaigns from search, job dispatch, and execution. They got an app that connects influencers with jobs posted by advertisers and lets influencers create content within the app.
5. Social Meds Digital
SocialMeds Digital is a full-service digital communications agency in Kenya with content creation, influencer strategy, and media buying at the heart of what they do. Their solutions are tailored to: Establish a strong, branded social media presence, Identify an Online Community that represents the Brand’s target audience, Create outstanding content that will engage that audience, and build that community. They believe that social media is about building relationships, not just attracting followers.
Conclusion
As I finish up on this guide to influencer marketing, my conclusion is this. Whether you start an agency or brand as a person, the efforts you put in to grow your business will determine your success. If not then, the quality and market reception of your content into the market will also determine your success.
When building a brand as a person and you notice that the content you post is not positively received by your audience, then do research and make possible adjustments in line with your passion.
I hope you found this guide helpful, if you have any questions or comments about the influencer marketing business then drop them in the comment section below.
Remember, success is a responsibility and it doesn’t happen by chance as thought by many people. Are you ready to take up the responsibility and go make money online in your influencer marketing business? then let’s goooooo!
