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Home Blog Page 7215

Dear Digital Marketing Strategists

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You have your clients across the continent. The game of social media marketing has changed. With many companies that depend heavily on Facebook traffic closing, now is the time to reach out to your clients and offer new strategies. I have a template you can customize. We have used a similar one here.


Dear Partner,

You are aware that Facebook has changed its algorithm, prioritizing posts from family and friends over those from companies. The social media giant is favoring contents that drive interaction over those for static or passive consumption. The implication is that most posts you share on your official business page on Facebook would be seen by lesser people. If the posts do not appear on users’ feeds, people would not see them, and you would get minimal traction for your business.

As your strategist, we want you to take action immediately and redesign how you can continue to reach your current and potential customers on social media. To our knowledge, Twitter cannot implement a similar strategy since there is no way to segregate between business and personal accounts at the moment. So, Twitter is a good tool to drive your business promotion. Just like Facebook, Snapchat has also implemented a similar algorithm which makes business-related contents do poorly in the ecosystem. LinkedIn, largely human-anchored and generally business-oriented, has never been a great platform to drive engagements from business official pages.

In other words, the chance that you can optimize earned social media without using your own personal accounts looks increasingly diminished.  Of course, if you have the budget, you can always buy adverts on these platforms. However, the problem is that most times, when the adverts stop, everything stops. Organic traffic remains the best strategy to build and introduce your brand in your networks. As your strategist, we do recommend that the leader of this organization commits to use his/her personal social media accounts to help the business.

As that is done, we also recommend the following: Invest in a Newsletter. With social media entities creating confusion, it makes sense to invest in newsletter if you want to reach customers. MailChimp is a good one. We do not recommend Podcasts and Alexa at this time; Newsletter remains an alternative way to fix this challenge from Facebook.

Companies which have traditionally depended on Facebook traffic are already collapsing. We need to plan to avoid the fate of LittleThings which was decimated by a change in algorithm.

 Then Facebook made another big change to its algorithm, one that was supposed to prioritize content from friends and family over news publishers. Speiser said this cut LittleThings’ influencer and organic traffic (which was its most valuable traffic) by 75 percent.

“No previous algorithm update ever came close to this level of decimation,” he wrote. “The position it put us in was beyond dire. The businesses looking to acquire LittleThings got spooked and promptly exited the sale process, leaving us in jeopardy of our bank debt convenants and ultimately bringing an expedited end to our incredible story.”

We would be expecting to know when we can visit or Skype to explain these changes extensively. It is always an honor to be serving this firm; we appreciate the opportunity. Our digital team has produced tools to help and we would be waiting to help the firm.

Your Strategist,

Nd

Can African Tech Startups Succeed in a World Dominated by Facebook and Google?

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I have a piece in the Harvard Business Review this morning – it is titled “Can African Tech Startups Succeed in a World Dominated by Facebook and Google?”. Sure, I have nothing against these global ICT utilities but I want a conversation on how African startups can transmute to have promising futures. Yes, it is free enterprise but under the aggregation construct, we might have been circled.

These companies aggregate the data and scale massively with near-zero marginal cost, which is all made possible by the internet. Because they are ahead with an enormous number of users, they keep getting better, and the data they accumulate drives improvements in their algorithms. Changing this order is largely hopeless, and that creates a competitive stasis for local entrepreneurs.

Details of our Private Sector Funding for Africa

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Fasmicro Group, a dynamic diversified conglomerate with interests on technology, agriculture, finance and consulting, has unveiled a funding system with focus on the private sector in Africa. In the past, our Funds had focused on public sector where we have worked on projects with Mali’s Ministry of Energy and Water, Federal Capital Development Authority (Abuja, Nigeria), etc.

For this fund, we are working with global private equity firms to fund private sector projects in continental Africa (excluding Somali and Sudan; sanctions, and as an American, I cannot do business there). The overall framework of this Fund is as follows:

  • Amount: $10 million – $25 million.
  • Duration: Multi-years with grace period for repayment.
  • Interest rate: Single digit.
  • Fees Involved: Basic and success fees. The basic fee is not paid up-front. It takes place after advanced phase of the process when we have ascertained the deal is near-closure.
  • Debt payment: You cannot use our Funds to repay debts. It is a growth  fund.
  • Territory: Africa excluding Somali and Sudan.
  • Structure: No franchise unless it is the HQ of a franchise. In other words, if you belong to a franchise, we cannot fund you. But if your business controls franchises, we would consider.
  • Type: Equity/Debt.
  • Closure Duration: In weeks depending on the quality of your documentations and processes for due diligence.
  • Industry: We are sector agnostic; we fund all legal business sectors.
  • PPP (Govt Partnership): We fund projects with partnerships with government provided the partnerships can be structured as JVs where government control is diminished. Government cannot be a majority shareholder of projects supported by this Fund.
  • Clause: We may require a freeze of all dividends (to your shareholders) until debt financing is paid off in our termsheet.

Send your business plan to bizplan@fasmicrogroup.com.

Our team is already working in Lagos and would respond to you within hours we receive your business plan.  The feedback will inform you of our interest. If we like the business, the team would perform preliminary due diligence as we move on the process. You would be invited to a meeting after speaking with our team. No one would ask you to pay any fee; that happens deep into the process.

We would open an Addis Ababa office in coming months to manage projects in eastern and southern Africa.

Please Note: This fund is largely more expensive compared to VC fund. It is not generally optimized for startups. Also, it is not structured for government projects.

IOTransfer 2, An Easier Solution to Sync Data between iPhone/iPad and Windows PC

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A large majority of iPhone users use a Windows PC as their main PC rather than an Apple Mac and as such they need a special software application to be able to sync their iOS devices seamlessly with their PC. IOTransfer 2 is in my opinion the best application available currently.

IOTransfer 2 has a sleek, interactive user interface with an unforgettable user experience. On the surface, it has a more appealing look than the iTunes designed for Windows PC. Its features are easily accessible from the homepage as they are divided into tabs. Just a click and you are on your way to accessing a wide range of functionalities.

File Management

IOTransfer 2 allows you to transfer movies, videos, photos, songs, contacts, voice memos and other files from your iOS device to you PC and vice versa as many times as you want. You can move your favourite files to any location on your PC. Its easy to navigate user interface provides from a memorable user experience. Fast and easy to use!

Free online video downloader

With Online Video Downloader in IOTransfer 2, you can download videos from over a hundred video streaming platforms online, from Facebook to YouTube and Twitter you just name it. All your favorite videos are available for save to your iPhone and iPad with just a single click. You can enjoy your videos anywhere you are.

Smart Phone Cleaner

We all love an app that can help us get rid of unwanted and redundant files on our devices. IOTransfer helps you solve this with its smart iPad/iPhone cleaner, you can scan and clean your devices to free up space for more fun stuff. Thereby, providing you with a fun and memorable user experience on your IOS device.

Data Backup

With a single click, you can easily backup and transfer contacts, photos, videos, songs on your iOS devices to your windows PC.

In addition, the manage centre allows you to manage all your files from videos, contacts, eBooks, podcasts, memos, calendars and basically every information stored on your device will be safely backed up on your PC.

Verdict

The features highlighted above clearly states the advantages of using IOTransfer 2, just to reiterate, it provides support for video transfers, online video downloads, file manager, data backup and device cleaner. In summary, IOTransfer 2 is highly rated iPhone manager amongst its pairs. It is arguably the best iPhone/iPad to windows transfer software application available. You can free try this application for 7 days, or pay to experience managing and transferring files as you wish. That’s all you need to enjoy the amazing features IOTransfer 2 has to offer.

Two Nigerian Firms on “One Oasis Strategy” for Harvard Business Review

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Many months ago, we started working with many African clients on the One Oasis Strategy (read it here).  That was before I made it public on my blog. Later this month, you would read in the Harvard Business Review how this strategy has helped two of the companies – ATB Techsoft and Amaecom. Specifically in Nigeria, during the time of market turbulence driven by forex, oil prices, political systems and security, how you invest matters.

Just as Amazon cloud (AWS) was built to grow the Amazon ecommerce business before it became a product itself, there are many ways you can structure your capital to make it work better. Yes, you need to invest in the oasis because that is the best place to invest in a desert. ATB Techsoft is an indigenous software company while Amaecom is an asset financing company. With one oasis strategy, these institutions improved significantly in the creation of value and the utilization of assets. They are now better positioned to win more markets in the respective markets.

ATB Techsoft is not just innovating on technology but also on business model; the FinUltimate software suite is winning market share. Amaecom has moved into private sector asset financing with its public-sector leading buy now pay later.

Meanwhile, I have a piece coming out this week in the Harvard Business Review. It is on African entrepreneurs. I will share here once it is live.

Simply, if you build your investment around that main product, you will find success, because those Investments will have a clear internal “customer”, and that reduces market risks. In other words, if your new business investments are geared to support the best product, and the best product is doing well, it implies the risks on the new investments will be easily managed. Provided the best product continues to do well, demand on the new investment is assured (i.e. the customer exists, irrespective of the external market). That is the One Oasis Strategy.

In the One Oasis Strategy, the key element is to align business innovation to favour the best product in the company on utility, value and cost which over time would help the firm compete better externally. It is firstly an inward looking management system, and offers a firm an opportunity to test strategies, models, business systems and production processes, perfecting them before they are launched for outside customers. Yes, with one oasis, a firm refines its process, technology and product, positioning it for success.