The use of the internet has certainly grown in recent years. It’s hard to remember a time when the internet did not exist. What was life like? How did people communicate? While the internet has come with some disadvantages such as addiction and cyberbullying, we certainly cannot ignore its numerous advantages. Life has been made a lot easier. For me, the best thing that the internet brought is the ease of communication with people over long distances. At the touch of a button, you can call someone and talk to them while seeing them, almost as if they were there with you. Perhaps one of the biggest advantages of the internet is the revolution of business operations.
Nendo is a consultancy focused on customer insight, competitive intelligence and data analysis. In March 2020, they published their 2020 Digital Trends Report. The team went through +50 large scale trends from the Kenyan tech ecosystem and put them all together.
Here are a few of the highlights of the report:
- Short-form mobile video apps to watch: TikTok vs. vSkit
It became apparent that audiences spend a lot more time watching as compared to reading. This led to a lot of lay-offs for writers and editorial staff in favour of video content creation. However, this didn’t exactly pay off seeing as video didn’t yield the anticipated commercial and audience success. Video related content only recently took off with apps such as Tubidy, Tiktok and vSkit becoming popular in Kenya. The application that takes centre stage is Tiktok. vSkit is its major competitor, created by Transsion Group, the creators of the Tecno, Infinix, Spice and itel phone brands.
- Reworking your influencer marketing strategy
As a marketer one of the things to note is the dynamism of the world. Things are constantly changing, and for a business strategy to succeed, it must evolve with the changing times in the world. This segment focuses on influencers and how they should restrategize in terms of marketing. A report by the Odipo Dev9 team found that 82% of Kenyans think influencer marketing doesn’t affect their purchases, moreover very few Kenyan consumers, 14% of the audience surveyed, actually trust influencers to recommend brands or products to them. According to the same report, there is a perception that influencers have sold their credibility for advertising shillings. To earn the trust of their audience, influencers have to completely change this perception.
Despite all this, Nendo predicts that despite the challenges of disclosure and the perception of value, influencer marketing will continue to grow. Nendo published a 3-way framework aimed at helping influencers increase their value on Digital Africa with Mark Kaigwa, Nendo’s YouTube channel.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y932hSrt80&t=318s
- Revisiting social media and mental health in 2020
The relationship between social media and mental health is one that has been talked about for a while now. While social media is still relatively new, some of its negative effects have already started to show. The report states that technology, smartphones and social media are gaining criticism for being designed deliberately to be addictive. The report refers to a study that proved that the people who avoid social media completely felt more satisfied with their lives.
The report also discusses how marketers can take advantage of the consumers’ need to take a social media hiatus by rewarding those who can abstain from social media. Margaret Ireri, C.E.O of TIFA Research Centre Limited says that this way, they are aligning with consumer needs and still giving them opportunities to interact with their brand.
- Are Kenyan digital agency budgets going up or down?
As a start-up influencer in Kenya, it’s important to know whether the narrative that you can completely make a living out of the career. The report states that a trend that is expected to continue is the growth and depth of digital expenditure in 2020. However, the report also states that this claim has little empirical evidence to cite on this except for informal conversations with major global advertising networks that work with Kenyan companies.
Leading thinkers in the marketing effectiveness space globally such as Byron Sharp (author of How Brands Grow) and Les Binet and Peter Field (joint authors of The Long and the Short of It) argue that the downside of digital marketing is that it has short term sales activation. This makes it harder in more competitive categories to stand out and make a lasting impact on the audience.
According to Nendo, for the budget to go up in 2020, marketers will be required to put aside their desire for the quantity of content, and instead invest increasingly on the quality of the content that is created.
- There will be more in-sourcing and digital marketing training
When it comes to digital marketing we find that it is mostly done through outsourcing influencers who may not always believe in the mission of the organisation, and therefore the aspect of quality is compromised. In 2020, Nendo anticipates that clients will get more aggressive at in-sourcing. That is, competing for creative talent to bring within the organization. This can include media buyers, account planners, strategists, designers and social media managers. In short, there will be more people joining organisations to achieve digital marketing goals. The key benefits of doing this include benefitting from stronger negotiating power and leverage for the corporation.
- The future of chatbots for your business
The use of chatbots such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook messenger has undoubtedly risen over the years. Nendo predicts that in 2020, the conversation on chatbots will diminish from niche chat and messaging app Telegram, and continue its steady rise on Facebook’s Messenger platform and explode, once WhatsApp integrates payments within its chat experience. It also states that they will prioritise groups and posts that engage ‘friends and family.’ Live chat will be a key functionality in competing and preserving client relationships.
Click here to download the full report.
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