One of the critical factors for business owners is to be on the same social networking platform with people who have experience in the entrepreneurial journey.
The primary vision of every entrepreneur in Nigeria is to grow their business and increase their audience, but there are lots of strategies and ways of doing that; the best of them are the ones that have been tested and proven to work.
Although some entrepreneurs prefer to work things their way, which mostly leads to a waste of time and resources, some will look up to mentors; who have acquired substantial experience to model their strategies and use for their business.
Now how do you get these strategies? Again, it is quite simple; be part of social networking platforms where they are shared.
Social networking platforms are where entrepreneurs from every level of experience share ideas, information, strategies, and many things that can help all entrepreneurs grow and be more intentional with their business. However, most of these communities are more on social media platforms.
In this piece, I will be exposing the five best social networking platforms where you as an entrepreneur should always be found.
Table of Contents
5 Best Social Platforms for Nigerian Entrepreneurs
-
Startup Grind
This social networking platform was established in 2012. The founder, Derek Andersen, found this community because he noticed most of the entrepreneurs he saw around him were having similar problems with building up their businesses, so he summed up the initiative to make them come together to solve their problems and grow their business together.
He so much believed that entrepreneurs are more effective together and are capable of achieving a lot, especially when done collectively.
Headquartered in Abuja, the mission of Startup Grind is to educate business startups or entrepreneurs on building, growing, and scaling their companies.
This is the only social networking platform that doesn’t have any other intent apart from the growth of entrepreneurs on the list; You can sign up for their membership here to join.
The following are the benefits of being part of this social networking platform;
- Attend events that are industrially based
- Access to member community networking platforms.
- Access to the well-supervised founder to founder matching.
- Exposure to boards that post new Job opportunities.
- Opportunity to promote your product or service to the broader startup grind community.
So if any entrepreneur is to be in any community, the Startup grind should be part.
-
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a social networking platform where businesses of all types and organizations are represented for business purposes.
Though it’s strictly a business platform where it is more of landing clients than help and suggestions, there are also communities created by founders in different fields that you can be part of.
It is an excellent social networking platform to get ideas and see how other businesses in your field or niche have used their strategies to save their company which still works.
LinkedIn has been proven to have more than 55 million companies that have started just like you did. Imagine having just the experience and knowledge of 10% of those companies written for you to read and implement in your business. Yea, now you get the feeling.
It is crucial to know that LinkedIn is also a place to grow authority based on what your business does. So that means you are killing two birds with a stone.
Grow your network, and connect with relevant people and businesses that can help you grow. Be consistent because you have competitors willing to do what you are reading now.
It can’t be overlooked too that your business has the potential to be seen by potential clients who are willing to even do business with you, so having a page for your business on LinkedIn will boost your outreach to your prospects too.
-
Twitter
Twitter is also a micro-blogging platform where over 40 million Nigerian users can be found sharing and posting content. It is also a place where businesses thrive.
Most of the world’s leading entrepreneurs are on Twitter, starting from Elon Musk, the highest shareholder of the platform. So many things are going on there, but it depends on what you want the community to offer you.
Yes, of course, Twitter is where people with different motives are, nothing different from other social media platforms where an entrepreneur should be intentional with their business. Still, some features make Twitter very important to business growth. Such features include; hashtags, trends, Twitter space, etc.
Twitter’s backend algorithm will help push your content for people of the same interest as you to see. But, again, connecting and following entrepreneurs who are likely to be in the same business as you do will give you a lot ahead of those not in the media.
If you present yourself well on this platform, you will be able to land clients looking for solutions to their problems which if your product can solve and they can trust you, you may have them as long term customers. Also, keep in mind you have competitors, so try to do your very best.
Read also: Top 10 Successful Entrepreneurs in Nigeria
-
Instagram
Instagram is a platform with over one billion users, including all types of people with different motives and purposes. Still, it has been confirmed to be saturated with entrepreneurs willing to take their business to a higher level.
Here are the benefits of being an entrepreneur on Instagram;
- Avenue to present your products or services to your prospective customers: Instagram features such as reels, ads, posts, etc., will help push your product and services to the right audience. Also, it will attract entrepreneurs of similar interest.
- Build long term relationships with your customers who were your fans before: In business, the most revenue generated is accrued from the previous customers who come again to patronize such business. Therefore, building a long-term relationship on a social networking platform such as Instagram is an excellent benefit because it is easy to talk to your customers and get their feedback and request from their comments.
- Traffic source to your website or product page: Not all the one billion users are your prospective customers but getting 1% of this audience to visit your product page or website will boost your returns, and you will experience a drastic increase in sales.
- Reach out to New Audience: Instagram has some features like hashtags, tags, and others to make each post or picture related to business reach out to more Audiences interested in such positions. This way, you will be able to reach out to a new audience even when you already have your customers.
- Access to trends which may affect the marketing of your products or services: Instagram is a place where social content is well circulated, and social content without trends is incomplete; Trends are the major spice in all social content. Nothing sells faster than products Whose marketing is in line with the present trends. Trends can help you make some decisions with your marketing to make your business skyrocket in sales.
- Customer analytics: Instagram gives you an insight into your customers and how often your page grows; this will be handy when you are testing different marketing strategies because you will be able to see the effects of such Marketing. And also, you will be able to know more about your customers because no business does better than the business that knows a lot about their customers and helps them based on what they know.
Although, you also have the opportunity to learn from rising businesses about your niche and business line, like watching their ads, the way they present their offers, and noting down things that are giving them the edge over others.
This will help you model working ideas and keep your thinking in the right direction for your business’s success.
-
WhatsApp Business
This platform is the lifeline of all start-up entrepreneurs and doesn’t mean it can’t be used by those already in business.
According to records, WhatsApp has over 4 million Nigerian users to communicate and share social media content like all other platforms.
WhatsApp business is quite different from regular WhatsApp because it is mainly used for business owners and entrepreneurs to communicate with their customers and clients, more of a one-to-one communication between both parties. There are a lot of features that can improve the growth of entrepreneurs’ businesses; these tools include an autoresponder, message automation and lots more.
Benefits of being on a social networking platform like WhatsApp Business include;
- Automated messaging features to messaging your customers even though you are not online.
- Easy Grouping of Customers contacts into labels for easy categorization.
- The easy Broadcasting system that allows the same messages to be sent out to your customers at once
- A business profile to showcase your product or services even though they are not on your list of customers.
- Customer analytics on messages sent and received aids follow up messages and feedback methods.
- Showcasing your products and services on a status where your saved customers’ contact can see to remind them of your product.
Overall, WhatsApp is a great entrepreneurship platform for building an audience. However, entrepreneurs should take it seriously by being intentional about using it.
Are you interested in whatsapp marketing to scale your business? We have a super-detailed course that teaches you everything you need to know about that. Send a message to get access now.
Conclusion
If you took notice of all these social networking platforms, you should be able to notice a common feature they all had, Leverage. All these platforms allow you to meet many people at once and even meet entrepreneurs right from the comfort of your home. That’s the easiest way to meet them all and gain from your connection and friendship.
Do not forget that your competitors are looming around all these platforms, so whatever you do on these platforms, be intentional and focused on it to gain from them. So whenever hurdles pop up, I think you now know where to visit and search for help because growing alone will be fast, trust me but growing together will take you far.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel if you’d like more useful tips on business growth and entrepreneur development.
You might also like;
How Entrepreneurs can Develop Networking Skills for Business Growth
11 Effective Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs in Nigeria
About Author
- Emmanuel Odebiyi is a seasoned content writer who specializes in writing valuable and engaging content in the technology, career, freelancing, finance, and lifestyle niches. He also writes sales copies that turn visitors into returning customers.
Latest entries
EntrepreneurDecember 27, 2023Writing Business Proposals: Content of an Effective Business Proposal
CareerDecember 20, 2023How to Publish Your Book on Amazon: A Guide for Nigerians
EntrepreneurDecember 11, 2023Top 6 Analytics Tools To Track Your Business Growth
TechnologyNovember 26, 20235 Major Differences Between Web 2 and Web 3 Every Nigerian Developer Should Know