Numerous opportunities have emerged for many people as a result of the growth of social media in Uganda and abroad.
Social media eased communication among people in the most convenient way ever. People can communicate with friends and family from whichever part of the world at a very small fee. The world is now more connected than it was 15 years ago—all thanks to social media.
For starters, social media refers to websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
Social network includes applications such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, TikTok, Snapchat, and so on. People use all these applications to communicate and watch videos for fun. Social media is also used to market people’s products and marketing has been made so easy.
Apart from communication, social media is also used for entertainment and fun. Various people post lots of funny pictures, videos, and messages which help to relieve stressful people. There is a game of numbers on social media where those with the most significant number of followers are the ones that are considered big on the various platforms.
There are people who have followers in excess of 1 million followers. For example, Robert kyagulanyi Sentamu (Bobi Wine) has 1.9 million followers on Twitter and over 1 million on Facebook. President Museveni has 2.9 million followers on Twitter. Many other people have tens of thousands of followers on their platforms as well.
It is therefore these huge numbers of followers on social media that have attracted various corporate companies to come and tap into this huge potential market. As a result, companies such as those dealing in insurance, Petroleum, soft drinks, Alcohol, banks, schools, restaurants, and so on, have tapped into this market by picking up famous people on social media just to market their products. This gave birth to a new group of people called “Influencers”.
“Influencers” are people who can influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media. Because there are many famous people on social media, companies have picked them up to influence them. People like A PASS who influences SAMS products, UNCLE MO who influences Guinness beer, Prudential, and OMO, Mikey seems 2 funny, and many others have enjoyed money coming from company endorsements.
Below is a video of one of the most popular social media Influencers Mikey Seems 2 funny after winning an award as the funniest on TikTok 2022.
However, many Influencers in Uganda, have not been paid their worth by companies. Companies realized loopholes among these social media celebrities, and this was a lack of professionalism. Since many of them are overnight celebrities, they don’t care about being professional as they deal with corporate companies and so they end up being paid peanuts to endorse and influence multi-million companies. In the end, these companies outsmart them.
Many social media influencers do not have managers and lawyers to guide them and read for them contracts in case they get an endorsement deal. As a result, they simply put pen to paper as long as they are earning money. This was a problem common among Uganda musicians but many have since improved. Whenever one doesn’t properly understand their contract, it is the company that benefits more.
Some of the social media influencers are only famous on social media for dancing around, making short skits, motivational speaking, etc without clear jobs or talents and so any money that is paid to them is ok for them. This is a loophole that big corporate companies are exploiting. They pay less money for more. An influencer who has 100,000 followers on TikTok to accept a deal of 1 million shillings to influence a product for 3 months is so little. It means they make about 330k a month, but because they have no specific jobs apart from dancing on social media, they will take this money up, and the company benefits more.
Companies also find it cheap and convenient to pay social media influencers other than getting a brand ambassador. Brand ambassadors are more exposed and charge more money than an average social media influencer. Therefore a company will prefer to use an influencer as Opposed to brand ambassadors to market its products or services.
I conclude by saying that social media influencers should work on branding themselves more, properly reading their contracts of endorsements, and knowing their worth vis a-vis the brand they are endorsing. This is how they will make more money from their work and fame. The good thing is that now anyone can earn an endorsement from a company and make money unlike previously when endorsements were a preserve of musicians, top sportsmen or film actors, and a few comedians. Bless you.
