On Thursday 24th February 2011, the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya (CMA) launched a report on Impact Investing on ICT in the East African region. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation (who we currently working with on developing an online platform for Climate Exchange Network for Africa), the CMA established a task force whose main work was to look at the current situation and identify the areas to focus on to enable the region overcome existing barriers to SMEs accessing funds for executing ICT projects. Recommendations that offer solutions to the predicaments highlighted in the report in-order to boost investments in small ICT ventures with huge potential were presented.

Why the fuss about Impact Investing? This is basically where an investor will pro-actively seek investments that generate both financial as well as specific social or environmental return. Such investments are expected to go a long way in changing the lives of people in the region through offering technological solutions to everyday problems and having a financial benefit to the investors and enterprenuers. The main objectives such investments usually include:

• Increase incomes and assets of the poor
• Improve basic welfare for people in need
• Mitigate climate change

Headed by Richard Bell, the East Africa ICT Impact Investing Project task-force has successfully completed intensive research and brainstorming and have finally presented a very comprehensive report that covers legislative changes, details on fast-tracking and enhancing the growth of incubation and angel investors.

You can download the full report in pdf here: Impact Investment Challenges Opportunities in the East Africa ICT Sector

The innovations and online start-ups that have emerged in the past few months have made a major difference in the traditionally perceived use of the web. Talk more of an entire world of online communities, web strategies and as a marketing platform for businesses. The entire post will cover the expectations in social media, client relationship management, web design practices, online marketing & advertising, interactive strategies and some bit of mobile technology. Thats the introduction, so lets dig in….

Social Media Marketing & Online Communities
The trend was already set in 2009, picked up pace in 2010 and I highly doubt this year will be any different. It’s almost a surety that there will be an increase in the use of the current main social media platforms namely; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Blogs by both individuals and organizations. The trends of an increasing Internet access due to the penetration of mobile web speaks for this. The Egyptian revolution story will make more leaders aware of the power of social media and the highly unpredictable youth who dominate the platforms. More leaders (and companies) will look to tap into this steadily growing and highly responsive market.

In Africa, the growth of social groupings around products, services and a common interest will spill over from the US and Europe. New jobs titles such as Online Community Managers and Social Media Managers will become more ‘normal’ in boardrooms and hallways conversations across the continent will be extended to online social platforms thus grow the communities in terms of numbers and content.

Universal Log in and security
The expected growth in use of the Internet (mostly through the increased penetration of web-enabled mobile phones and the current battle among Smartphone manufacturers) will be the main jolt needed for the establishment of a universal one-user multiple accounts login credibilities such as Google’s Friend Connect and FacebookConnect, MySpace’s Data Portability and the Twitter authentication options. Maybe this will lead to an all-out-war for popularity in the use of the authentication options. This generates the question of a unified legislation on online security. The recent attackers by Anonymous in support of Wikileaks showed how organized hackers are and how quickly they can get behind a cause. I wonder if they can also come together and with the same solidarity develop a regulation for themselves. With the current shift in focus by hackers and virus writers from the Windows OS as the main target to mobile devices, never before has there been a much necessary need for an effective online privacy and security protocol to be implemented worldwide.

Exclusivity and Segmentation
Is there more space for new social platforms to be created? Exclusivity provides the answer. Like it has happened in all societies, the projected increase in the population of social media users will create a need for redefining of niche groups to maintain exclusivity. This has already begun to happen with the emergence of more oriented social platforms that focus on specified areas of interest. Talk about the likes of Quora, Jumo, VC4Africa who basically end up using the default login credibilities from the main players such as the FacebookConnect and Twitter OAuth options. Some of these start ups with a niche target will have to come together and merge in order to increase capacity, enhance features and maintain relevancy in the escalating social platforms jungle. A further segmentation of the global social networks will be brought about through the development of apps which basically provide an improved version of the current features we have now come to know as groups and forums.

Online Marketing – African burst
This is more of our turf and positivity is the word. It not just about being optimistic, but the numbers tend to point towards an increased ads spending on online marketing and client engagement via social media marketing across the globe. There will be a global growth in online ad spending but the most significant growth will be in the African online scene, both from the organizations and the publishers. More and more publishers will discover that there actually exists better ways to monetize the portfolio than just running Google Ads. Not that am against Google Ads, but I am sure many bloggers can attest to this. The returns one gets from running the ads for weeks are meager, unreliable and it may just not do justice to the overall site design you had initially visualized. An upsurge of partnerships between corporates and bloggers, local ad agencies will make a dash for the available portfolio coming up with each new website cropping up. Social media will take the forefront as the main delivery vehicle for online marketing and client relationship management.

Ad spending
Local content has been on the fore-front of promoting Internet activity in many African countries. This mainly entails development of more websites thus more virgin space for online marketers. The industry is currently at a starting point but the realization of the potential and rate of ROI in online advertising is growing. The big online markets (SA, Kenya, Nigeria and Egypt) are expected to record a big chunk of the global projected online ad spending stats at the end of the year.

According to a report by eMarketer, the total expenditure in online advertising has finally surpassed newspaper ads with an estimation of $25.8 billion for online ads against $25.7 billion for newspapers. “In each of the following four years, Internet ad spending will hit new peaks…….. It may seem counterintuitive, but marketers’ concerns about the ongoing economic turbulence are driving more online ad spending. This trend reflects how most forms of Internet advertising are now seen as more of a ’sure thing’ than most traditional media.” said the firm. Well, obviously in Africa it will not be a complete shift from the traditional media but rather sizable jolt in budgets to online ads. Just enough to turn corporate heads.

Apps and Ads
We just cannot stop the development of apps. That train left the station long ago headed to an exciting but unknown destination. Are apps killing the web? According to Wired’s editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, the web is already dead and has given way to slicker and simpler online services via the highly vibrant and futuristic Internet. Leading the pack in the new online order are smart gadgets; mobile phones and tablets through apps.

What role will apps play in online advertising? In 2010, out of the total ads spending statistics in the US, in-app ads accounted for 5% of the total value. This will most definitely rise with the development of more smart phones by Windows Mobile and Android. The newly released Android version, Honeycomb is optimized for tablets thus it is expected to further boost the development of the gadgets by manufacturers. This means more apps, more ad space. I think the guys at Google had a dream about this. They acquired Admob in May at a cost $750million with all the intentions of recouping their investment plus lots of profits. Google have taken the platform global and at the moment, the in-application ad network is currently getting over 2 billion ad requests each day thanks to both Android and iPhone owners.

A while back, I had an interesting discussion with a client with regards to the best way for her organization to have a an effective digital footprint. Our meeting went on well as we covered Internet strategy, website design and content, SEO and online advertising . But come social media and major doubts came into play. “I know its important but not at the moment. We need to focus on selling the product and reaching more clients.” was the response. As an online PR and marketer, I felt this was a challenge and decided to try and answer some of the main questions to help clear the the name of social media, of which business executives already consider a grey area.

So here goes:

Social Media is time consuming and labor intensive:
No one understands the company brand and products better than the company employees and if they can not talk about it, then there is a big possibility no one else will. We find many companies that ‘block’ their employees from accessing social sites so that they spend more time working but in essence we are just keeping most of the information and facts about your brand or product bundled up within the organization’s walls. I suppose thats not good for business right?
Well, with the correct strategy on time, content and target metrics, a company can be able to provide a good customer relation management through social media using minimal resources and time. Updates, responses and posts can be done in a scheduled and regular manner that even the clients can get accustomed to. The most important thing will be to ensure consistency so as to earn the trust of your audience and hence gain more followers who know what to expect and when. But most importantly, how to get in-touch with you.

Basic function of social media is to reflect what’s on my company website:
What ever is said on social media platforms can be said on the website using even more words and explanation with even better results; This is a lie. Yes, social media can not replace the use and effectiveness of a website in some areas but it presents the personal side of the company. Its pretty hard to reach the hearts of your clients when the communication is analogue.
With social media, its more of a digital dialogue that has the potential to be replicated and shared by other people. This is basically getting a thumbs up from your audience to others who will most likely be directed back where you want them; your website. An effective use of social media to increase traffic to your website and generate online conversations about your brand is dependent on the social media strategy execution plan put in place.

Measuring ROI and Impact of social media is complicated and is usually inconclusive:
Two ways, qualitative and quantitative measure of success and impact. Under the qualitative measure of social media and online PR, you need to determine the areas to be measured that is, corporate reputation, conversations or customer relationships, get benchmark questions on the current situation then come up with the questions to measure the success.
Quantitative measures of a successful social media campaign will include number of new followers/friends joining the company page/accounts, amount of mentions and links shared, retweets and level of increased traffic to the company website generated from the social sites.

The African online scene is still too young and immature:
I think the question should be “What does the future hold for social media in Africa so that I can invest my company resources in it?” The leading countries in terms of social media presence and use in Africa are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya and Egypt with each contributing in its own way via mobile, videos, blogs and popular micro-blog topics. The continent has created some impressive social media presence through user generated content that originate from social media platform such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and YouTube. Uganda produced its first viral video this year and Kenya has had more than three global Trending Topics under its belt but just to mention a few as there are many more examples we could list.

Its evident and quit understandable that many corporates in Africa still view social media as time consuming and an unnecessary undertaking. At the same time, many other organizations are setting up an online presence without fully understanding the benefits that can be achieved by the endless opportunities created by having a detailed and well structured strategy. At Pamoja Media, we offer a fully integrated social media and online PR expertise to unlock the endless opportunities that social media provides as an invaluable customer relations and management tool.

But the silver lining for the ad industry may be ROI intensive ad campaigns. So while marketing departments may be cutting back on ad dollars, they are still going to be spending those budgets somewhere. Rich Cherecwich says that we may see those dollars being re-directed into social media and online video.

Here is a brief excerpt from what he had to say on the topic:

“…With the current economic recession, digital marketing professionals are holding out hope that some of the budget dollars originally slated for traditional marketing will move into the cheaper, more measurable digital medium — and they just might be in luck.

More than half of the assembled brand buyers surveyed at the iMedia Brand Summit in Coconut Point, Fla. plan to “heavy up” on measurable, ROI-driven advertising strategies. In these dire economic times, if marketers can’t determine that a particular tactic demonstrates ROI, then they’ll slash it.

But when it comes to customer usage and marketing dollars, what aspects of digital will be the big winner in the coming months? More than half of the brand marketers believe it will be online video (29 percent) or social media (28 percent)…”