Facebook: Elegbe advises firms to leverage on Internet marketing

The chief executive officer, Interswitch Nigeria Limited, Mr. Mitchell Elegbe has advised Nigerian firms to leverage on Internet marketing, mostly now that the acclaimed leader in social media has officially launched its presence and partnership with WildFusion Nigeria.

This is coming as experts advised Nigerians on responsible use of Facebook, mostly in the corporate world.

Elegbe who was represented at the occasion by the chief commercial officer, Interswitch, Mrs. Titi Adeniji-Aderoju disclosed that presently, Nigeria has about 400 webmerchants who are generating about N9 million with estimated 500,000 transactions monthly.

He said that when compared with the population of the nation at about 150 million, it shows that there are lots of rooms for more people to come on board in terms of leveraging the opportunities created by the Internet and given that over 1.2 million are subscribed to Facebook as at March 2010.

“You can leverage on Internet by embracing internet marketing,” he advised, stressing that when you have the number and the population is there, then, there is
a huge market to tap.

He also advised Nigerian businesses to start with owning a website, but warned that it is not enough, rather the website needed the necessary buzz and traffic, which could be maximized with the Facebook advertising modules.

“A website without effective marketing is like building a gas station in the middle of the road,” he declared.

Elegbe equally said that time is really changing with most traditional marketing medium like television, radio, newspapers and magazines no longer generating the kind of revenue hitherto known before the advent of Internet.

Those who want to go into businesses nowadays, he said, must start out small with clear definition of what they want to do and specifically on marketing.

According to him, access to FB during working hours would be best managed if corporate organisations introduce fair guidelines, so as not to shot themselves on the foot.

He cited an instance that in some organisation, 9am to 5pm are usually tagged as purely working hours, although staff can access Facebook and other social networking sites at lunch period and after work hours.

Also speaking, the Managing Director, Habari Media Group of South Africa, Mr. Adrain Hewlett, disclosed that 1,240,700 Nigerians are already enjoying Facebook which cut across 66 per cent of male and 34 per cent female with demography comprising 13 – 17 age group forming 16 per cent, while 18 to 24 age bracket made up the 33 per cent, 25to 34 constituting 44 per cent, just as 35 and above formed 16 per cent of the figure of Nigerians on Facebook.

Nigeria, he said, is among the 500 largest countries across the globe with over 392 million monthly page viewers, assuring that Facebook is about honest, because any falsehood would be countered by those who know such a person very well.

Facebook, he further said, has developed basically because it’s a listening company.
In his comments, the Chief executive officer, Wild Fusion, Mr. Abasiama Idaresit declared that a great deal of opportunities abound for Facebook in Nigeria, especially in online advertising.

“Facebook is really very popular among Nigerians and it may interest you to know that the population of Nigerians on Facebook just surpassed the 1.14 million mark,” he said, stressing that from the latest statistics from Facebook, the social media platform is among the top three most visited sites by Nigerians and the most popular age demographic globally is 35-49.

He also quoted a recent BBC report on “Superpower” which indicated that Nigerian internet population stood at about 24 million people in 2008 based on the information sourced from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

This data, he said, places Nigeria as Africa’s biggest internet market audience against South Africa and Egypt.

According to him, the internet offers a great platform to reach millions of Nigerians with amazing targeting possibilities including age, gender, interest and behavioral targeting.

He explained that in order to give credence to this new partnership, his firm and Facebook representatives on the continent, Habari Group of South Africa hosted brand and marketing personnel and some FB enthusiasts from major Nigerian blue chip companies.

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