Have you seen the number of followers that Dr Strive Masiyiwa has on Facebook? He has millions of followers and has become the most influential African on Facebook! The reason for the followers is simple-Business! Africans want platforms where they discuss business, they want platforms where they are inspired by their business role models. They want to learn about entrepreneurship and there are few platforms for this.
Masiyiwa has therefore seen a gap and is enjoying sharing information through posts and recently Facebook Live broadcasts. He is always ahead of the curve and one needs to look at the people he is targeting and you want to know about them? They are youths, young people with a lot of energy, young people full of ambition, young people who are not afraid of taking risks. The future of business in Africa lies in Youth! If you are not targeting youths then you are missing the point. If you are dismissing youths then there is something totally wrong with your strategy.
Even political parties in Zimbabwe that are campaigning for the 2018 elections are targeting youths! We have witnessed a couple of youth rallies and at these rallies young musicians perform popular music genres such as Zimdancehall. On the Christian movement, one cannot escape the waves caused by popular young preachers such as Pastor Makandiwa and Pastor Magaya! The most popular musician in Zimbabwe at the moment is a youngster by the name Jah Prayzer who has relegated established musicians to second and other lesser positions on the music scene.
Youths are slowly taking over and they represent the future. If you operate a company in Zimbabwe and in your management structures you exclude youths then expect to lose competitive advantage in future. Most of your consumers are youths or are soon going to be youths and if you do not capture their feelings, if you do not capture their communication channels then you are a sure bet for failure in the long run. Population analysis puts the percentage of youths at 67% in the country and the numbers could be growing. This helps to explain the attention to youths by Zimbabwe’s most influential business person.
Dr Strive Masiyiwa has youths in mind and through his posts he inspires and also markets his Kwese Tv programme. Those of us who love marketing know that he is doing what is called content marketing! If he writes exclusively about Kwese Tv then few will be interested….he however inspires, educates and then throw in Kwese Tv at the end of his articles. Now that’s being a business genius and expect us to tackle content marketing in future which is still to be grasped by a lot of Zimbabweans.
The South African Connection
This week witnessed ZBIN featuring an article by a South African lady based in East London. The article on ‘how to open and run a restaurant business ekasi’ The post attracted more than 600 views and shocked the writer, Ms Siviwe. She had never written an article that got published and what had happened was that we collected the information that she was sharing on one of our groups and compiled a story. A good story that helps to inspire a lot of women interested in starting businesses.
I remember her fears when she said ‘But iam far, based in East London?’ Our response was simple-business nowadays knows no boundaries. Talent also knows no boundaries and what a way to start writing and you get 600 views with your first article! What is also happening is that the ZBIN brand is nolonger restricted to Zimbabwe as more than 500 South Africans visited our site to read an article that was relevant to them. ZBIN now has 1000 South African citizens on our Whatsapp groups, they discuss South African issues, they write articles for themselves…ZBIN only comes in to facilitate and providing a platform. We are also playing our part in a small way to help promote the future of business in Africa, the future that involves a lot of young people who are not afraid to break boundaries.
ZBIN Online TV
We have 2 new business newspapers coming and the reason is simple…..The Future is in Business! Two weekly publications will be hitting the streets in the coming few weeks to months. This is great news for the nation and ZBIN wishes them well.
On a related note, we have been doing Facebook Live Updates and seem to be improving each time. Each update has attracted more than 400 views and the numbers are increasing. We do not have studio equipment for the live updates but this is not a worry at all. Our intention is to provide our members and followers with up to date business or opportunities information. The live update is going to be a weekly event where we will cover various topics such as business registrations, opportunities in Zimbabwe, Running your business, Women in Business and a lot of other business issues.
The updates will include the Diaspora too so that they can share information on various topics as per request by our community. This should be a game changer in the area of entrepreneurship in Zimbabwe. We will use the platform mostly for updates and capacity building of SMEs. A cost effective method which does not cost a lot of money and we hope to improve and attract more than 10,000 per each broadcast session by the end of the year. Our volunteers will also use the platform to provide training and this will be a welcome move as there will be no need to hire venues or use money for travelling. Another first from Zimbabwe, young people showing that Zimbabwe got talent. Whilst Dr Strive Masiyiwa is making an impact on the continent, ZBIN is making a mark locally and regionally.
What is up this week?
A facebook live update from Vee in South Africa: She explains how to run a business in South Africa. We also make follow ups on a story of Bitcoin Fraudsters in Zimbabwe. Do expect an article on Face Book boosting. We encourage you not to miss the Facebook Boosting article as it is the new ‘in thing’ in the country. A number of companies are turning to Facebook Boosting and even political parties are turning to it too. We may even do a live update of this, do check progress on this during the week.
The Beira trip preparations are ongoing, all is now in order for a chance of forum members to critically analyse opportunities that exist in Beira. We would like to know how other Zimbabweans are doing it there. There is little written about Beira by Zimbabweans and we hope to be the first to write about it and also tap into opportunities that exist there. The distance from Harare to Beira is 457 kilometres and it is roughly the same distance from Harare to Bulawayo.
