I really can’t recall how I started following Omojuwa but I know I have watched him closely since 2010 after following him on Twitter. Japheth is many things to many people, but he has been a brother to me.
I have watched him evolve and grow from that young man who writes witty articles on his personal blog, to the twitter influencer, to being an active citizen who holds government accountable to being a businessman, speaker, philanthropist, a thought leader, speaker and most recently, an author among other awesome titles and caps he wears.
I think I can count the number of times I have physically met Omojuwa, but he has been that brother I have come to love and admire from afar and closely too, he is an inspiration. I first met Japh for the first time in 2011 for the first time at Sheraton hotel in Lagos, where he invited me and a few people to have the interview session we had with the then former FCT Minister now Kaduna state governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, we had the pleasure of asking him questions and engaging with him. While I thanked him inviting me to the interview session, he told “Lamide, I didn’t invite you here because, we are both from Ondo state, nor did I invite you here because you are from Ilaje, I invited you here because you are I see a lot of potentials in you and the passion you have for the country”
Just like many of us, Omojuwa is flawed, but I have watched him grow to right his wrongs and continue on his journey to being a better version of himself daily. He is that friend that helps his other friends move up the ladder to the top while he is trying to find his way to the top. He is one who derives joy in the success of people he considers friends
For the many lives you are touching silently, for all you do for people you know and don’t know, for the opportunities you connect people to, I say thank you.
It’s been a great pleasure knowing you, continue to commit to being that better version of you daily, continue to be unstoppable, keep being deliberate about your craft. Happy birthday, brother, you are an inspiration! I am glad to be associated with you and also be able to ‘famz’ you, I wish you all the very best.
Communications Strategy For Nonprofits – Having worked in the nonprofit sector for 4 years and trained over 250 nonprofit organizations on different aspects of social media, I realize the challenge most nonprofit organizations have communicating the work they do on social media and telling compelling stories is not about not having a solid social media strategy but a communication strategy.
This article is part of a series I will be posting for a month in collaboration with my friend, Umar Abdullahi . We challenged each other to become better writers and will be posting our articles together once a week. Check out his latest blog post here
Nonprofit organizations do a lot of work, I can tell you this for a fact, most even have as much as 4 projects if not more they work on at the same time and they need to communicate them to attract funding, volunteers and of course reach their target audience.
Most nonprofits heads do not treat their organizations like a business, because they think they are not set up to make profit. If you are not set up to make profit, the least you can do is tell your stories in compelling ways to attract the right set of volunteers, your audience, and most importantly funding.
Thanks to new media, nonprofits can now tell their stories without spending a fortune on traditional media like newspapers, television, radio etc. All they now need to tell their stories is setting up accounts on various social media accounts
Every time I have an opportunity to train or facilitate a training with non-profit organizations, the first thing I tell them to do is develop a communications strategy and I also let them know all the work they do is not complete if they are unable to tell their impact stories in more compelling ways.
Here are 4 tips to help you tell your impact stories in more compelling ways on social media:
1. Have a communications strategy: According to Wikihow.com, A communications strategy, or plan, is a document that expresses the goals and methods of an organization’s outreach activities, including what an organization wishes to share with the public and whom the organization is trying to reach. Don’t just start posting on social media without a clear objective of what you want to achieve, what do you want your audience to do, see or think when they see your post? This is the most important part of your outreach, if you get this wrong every other thing fails.
2. Have a content calendar: I know the workload is never ending for staff of non-profit organizations. While working in the sector, my work as Digital Communications Manager had me doing the work of about 3 people, it wasn’t easy but I had to do what I had to do to produce the desired results. But, see, a content calendar will help you plan your weekly content ahead of time, all you need to then do is copy and paste. Who also says you have to post every day? Know what works for you and implement
3. Social Media Platform: What social media platform works best for you and your audience? Choose and focus on it. There is this mindset that you have to be active on all your social media platforms, it’s really important you are, but trust me it is not compulsory. If your audience is on Facebook for instance, focus on creating and sharing the best kind of content on that platform, master it and continue to evolve, there are also tools that can help you automate your updates across platforms, I will share more on the eBook I am co-authoring with my organization, Hexal Place. Anticipate!
4. Content: All your communications strategy and content calendar will be useless if your content is dead. Your content needs to be very appealing. You need to share emotive pictures, videos that show the work you do, infographics that sure details of your work, lives you have touched, money spent etc.
I can go on and on about all the things you should do in this blog post, but I will have to stop here, I will be sharing more in our soon to be released eBook.
If you are also looking to revamp or create a communications strategy for your non-profit organization, don’t hesitate to reach out to me, our consultation fees are quite affordable ?
The importance of websites to small, growing and large businesses can not be overemphasized. I had a chat with the Lead Developer at Sauce Stuidos, A Lagos based Website Development Agency, Toyin Alagbe on things small business owners should know before getting their websites designed for them.
Do you agree with his point? Are there other things you think they should take note of? I would love to hear from you.
Why do small businesses fail? I had a chat with Digital Media Marketer and Brand Strategist, Adeola Kayode at the Lagos WordCamp Conference and he talked about how customers are key to the success of any business, he also pointed out that small businesses fail because they pay too much attention to the products and services they offer instead of the customers they set out to serve. Find out more about Adeola on his website here
Be the first to know when there is a new video on my YouTube Channel by clicking on the SUBSCRIBE button HERE
Adeola Kayode effectively combines the roles of a Brand and Communications Strategist, Entrepreneur, Trainer, Writer, Counselor, Graphic Designer, Public Speaker, Blogger and a passionate Patriot of the New Nigeria.
So why do small businesses fail? Watch my short interview with Adeola Kayode below.
If there are more reasons you think we should know about, please don’t don’t hesitate to share in the comment box
So the 30 minutes free strategy call I announced 2 weeks ago is finally here, but I won’t be doing it alone. I will be working with a team of people who are also passionate about helping small businesses reach their full potentials.
A lot of small businesses don’t get it right from the beginning. Some can’t identify or explain who their target audience and market are, some don’t even know why they are in business. Some start businesses because they see someone else thriving in a venture and they also want to give it a shot. Many are actually in the right businesses but can’t seem to get their desired market to know about and patronize them.
Okay, truth be told, we may not have all the answers or solutions to all the problems identified above, we will definitely be able to help solve some. I have had a few people (friends, family and those I don’t know) ask for my help with ideas on the best way to market their products and services, social media marketing and campaigns and a whole lot of other areas my expertise lies.
Let me introduce myself; my name is Olamide Egbayelo, I holda BSc. in Computer science, Diploma in Social Media Marketing, Diploma in Integrated Brand Experience and a Certificate in Strategic Brand Building. I have I worked in the tech, religious, PR & communications and Non-profit sectors (Find out more about my work experiences here). I enjoy creating strategies for brands and services in Digital Media, Mobile Marketing, and Brand Communication. I also have the following skills: Brand communications, strategy, writing, project management, business development, ideation etc. Above all I am a great planner. I will be introducing my other friends in due time.
If you think we can be of help in any way to your business or your organization,head to Hexal Place now to fill the formso we can know about the problems you would like us to solve together. Please do also note that the call will be solely via Skype (with a phone call as back up) and you will be required to have a skype enabled device and internet access to make this work.
I started working on this brief with the mindset that I was going to be the best at it. It was my first brief into my journey as a Brand Strategist, even though it was for an abstract Aphrodisiac biscuit brand, I was determined to make it as real as possible and push myself hard beyond seeming limits. It was fun and challenging. I almost gave up at a point because it looked like I wasn’t getting it right but so much was at stake for me. I had given up so much to make sure this project was a success. I hope you enjoy reading this. I will be sharing my score at the end of this write-up
The Brief
Above is the brief I worked and made a presentation at Orange Academy last week Saturday. As Integrated Brand Experience (IBX) students, we were tasked with branding an APHRODISIAC BISCUIT targeted at adults. It was challenging at first but I made up my mind to ‘kill’ the project and guess what? I did!
My Research Journey
Working on this brief was really awkward for me at first. Never heard of the word ‘Aphrodisiac’ until we got this Brief last year. I started by reaching out to friends who worked in the health sector to find out about the health implications and benefits of Aphrodisiacs and why and how they are different from sex enhancements products, I also wanted to know the categories of people who used them. I got 3 different insights talking to two doctors and a pharmacist and conclusion was that there was a huge market for Aphrodisiac products in Nigeria and demand is also pretty high
I still wanted to dig deeper, I wanted to understand how Aphrodisiacs are being used and the categories of people who used them, I visited 3 different pharmaceutical stores at different locations in Lagos. One of the stores was located around one of the top universities in Lagos, while the other 2 were located at one of Lagos’ commercial centres. I remember one of the pharmacists I spoke to was reluctant to talk to me about sex stimulants until I showed him proof that I was working on a project(Just another way culture affects issues in our society).
My Target Audience
While my research process was going on, I knew I wanted to target women but was undecided about the psychographics and demography of the women I wanted to target. I thought to myself if women are going to demand sexual freedom, it had to start early, so I decided to target women between the ages to 25 -40 who are either single or married, who are social and upwardly mobile. I looked up at the statistics of Nigerians within this age range and there are actually over 27 million of them according to CIA World Factbook.
Although women were profiled to be the primary consumers of this biscuit, I realised I needed to also reach the men who could also be customers. There are men who wouldn’t mind stocking up Aphrodisiac biscuits for their spouses while they stock up for themselves too.
My Findings
Since we were tasked with creating an edible Aphrodisiac brand for adults, I decided to check products I could compete with. There are a few edible ones but the market is dominated with pills and lubricants but I chose to compete with sex stimulant drops and sex chewing gums. Below are some of my findings (won’t be mentioning the brands):
1. Most Aphrodisiac products are targeted at men, very few products are available for women
2. There are no known quality edible aphrodisiacs in the market
3. The demand for edible aphrodisiac products are very high but very low in supply
4. There have been reports of date rapes activities using one of the products
My Insights
After speaking to medical experts on the various products in the market, I decided it was time to know who my target audience would be so I set up an online survey and asked my social media connects to fill, didn’t get quite much data as I thought I would so I started initiating conversations with friends and starting telling one I met about the exciting project I was working on and trusting them to help provide insight to take it further. I spoke with young and old men and women, I wanted to know their opinions about sex stimulants and find out if they used them too. Trust me, these conversations were awkward to have because women don’t usually talk about things like this publicly in this part of the world. Talked to about 20 people at different times, I streamlined the insights I got from the 4 following points below:
1. Most men don’t ask their partners how great the sex was after every experience
2. Most women don’t enjoy sex, they just endure through it
3. Women don’t want to be seen as sex machines, they want to be part of the experience
4. Women want to be able to express themselves sexually.
Consumer Insight and proposition I decided to focus on the 4th insight which “Women want to be able to express themselves sexually”. I dug more and found out that women want to be free to initiate sex, have foreplay and be all mushy with their partners they want sexual emancipation. So I decided to brand an aphrodisiac biscuit “to enhance women’s desire to enjoy sex”.
BIG Idea
Trust me, it took a long while to come up with this BIG Idea, I was stuck on it for about 2 weeks, all the ideas I had were off point, shared the progress I had made with a few friends and while we were making banters and laughing at how stuck I was, I thought of FREEDOM and then EMANCIPATION and then boom! I decided on Sexual Emancipation.
Introducing Spice
I had so many ideas on what I wanted the biscuit to be called; Play, Pump, Slay etc but I thought Spice sounded cool and resonated more with the audience I wanted to target so I went with it. One of the definitions of Spice according to the WordWeb dictionary means to “Make more interesting or flavourful”. Note that that the main aim of the biscuit I wanted to brand was to enhance women’s desire to enjoy sex. So to enjoy sex, women need to spice things up.
The Communication and Marketing Strategy
I was clueless as to what the communication strategy should be at first, I didn’t want the communication to sound and appear too ‘raunchy’ I wanted every of my target audience to feel like I was talking to them personally but didn’t know how to go about it. Thanks to my dear friend Omotayo (Former IBX student as well) working with me to get this right. We decided to go with recent happenings in the country (Nigeria) and we settled for ‘THE OTHER ROOM’. In Nigeria, the other room became synonymous to the bedroom in October 2016 when the Nigerian President claimed his wife belonged to the kitchen and the other room at an international conference ( please Google The Other Room + President Buhari to find out more).
The Other Room (Teasers + Reveal)
Recall from the big idea above that Spice is all about sexual emancipation for women, and from the research and insights I gathered, women wanted to be free to express themselves in ‘the other room’ so we had the following as teasers and eventually revealed the product
Advertisement and Promotional Materials
Go To Market I decided on the following route to market based on the insights I gathered during my research stage. Sex stimulants are not always publicly displayed at stores and most women don’t still feel comfortable buying them publicly. I also got to know that demand for edible sex stimulant products is high at 3–5 star hotels in Nigeria, so I chose as follows . . .
1. Pharmaceutical stores
2. Hotels
3. Lingerie shops
4. Online stores
I look forward to your comments and suggestions on what I would have done better
Oh, by the way, I had a total score of 82.37 over 100.
Here is a 40-second video from my presentation.
I absolutely enjoyed working on this project and would like to thank everyone who helped at one stage or the other. Special shout out to Omotayo(Brand Strategist), Eyitayo(Insight Imagination Officer) and Joseph (the creative designer) for the awesome and consistent feedback.
I look forward to your comments and suggestions on what I could have done better
Oh, by the way, I had a total score of 82.37 over 100.
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LinkedIn is a professional network or let me put it simple terms it is a website for your online CV and resume.
I was setting up a company page on LinkedIn a few days ago and I bumped into one of my contact’s LinkedIn profile with the name ‘SKILABO SKILASHI’. This got me upset and inspired this write up.
Using nicknames and Alias’ may be allowed on Twitter and Facebook, but excuse me? It is absolutely wrong to use these nicknames on LinkedIn, just like you can’t include your nickname on your CV or resume.
Most youths /Graduates just sign up on most web and social media websites without taking out time to learn about their usefulness and how it can MAKE or MAR them. Most employers now inform their prospective employees to include links to their LinkedIn profiles on recruitment forms instead of attaching CVs.
I have decided to help you list out some of the benefits of LinkedIn for people who do not know what its all about and also for those of those who have their nicknames of the professional social media platform to have a change of mind
Building your LinkedIn brand and profile
Companies spend billions to ensure you have a certain opinion of their products, and that perception is their brand image. You have your own brand image in your professional life, and it’s up to you to own, define, and push your brand. LinkedIn allows you to define a profile and build your own brand based on your professional and educational background.
Your LinkedIn profile can become your jumping-off point where any visitor can get a rich and detailed idea of all the skills, experiences, and interests that you bring to the table. Unlike a resume, where you have to worry about page length and formatting, LinkedIn gives you a place to present additional information:
Lists of groups you belong to
Memberships or affiliations you have
Honors and awards you have received
Professional interests.
Presentations for others to view
Website links to other parts of your professional identity
Looking for jobs on LinkedIn
LinkedIn makes it easier than before to do some of the following tedious job search tasks:
Finding the right person at a target company, like a hiring manager in a certain department, to discuss immediate and future job openings
Getting a reference from a past boss or co-worker
Finding information about a company and position before the interview
Searching posted job listings on a job board like the one on LinkedIn
The hidden power of LinkedIn is that it helps you find jobs you weren’t looking for or applying to directly.
LinkedIn research shows that “People with more than 20 connections are 34 times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than 5 connections.”
Finding information
You can use LinkedIn to find out more than just information about your job search. You can use this immense database of professionals to find out what skills seem to be the most popular within a certain industry and job title. LinkedIn now has thousands of detailed Company Profiles that not only show company statistics but also recent hires, promotions, changes, and lists of employees closely connected with you.
Best of all, LinkedIn can help you find specific information on a variety of topics. You can do a search to find out the interests of your next sales prospect, the name of a former employee you can talk to about a company you like, or how you can join a start-up in your target industry by reaching out to the co-founder.
Expanding your LinkedIn network
Whether you want to move up in your industry, look for a new job, start your own company, or achieve some other goal, one way to achieve these goals is to expand your network. LinkedIn provides a fertile ground to reach like-minded and well-connected professionals who share a common interest, experience, or group membership. The site also provides several online mechanisms to reduce the friction of communication, so you can spend more time building your network instead of searching for the right person.
Do note that LinkedIn is not a platform to look for bae or a platform to post personal pictures and updates. It is a professional network
I actually wrote this article on April 27, 2013 on Hexal Place but lost the page while moving hosts last year. I have decided to repost again because of the complaints I have been seeing about how Nigerians use LinkedIn. Do read, post comments and share with your friends.
