It's very interesting to see the similarities and differences between bloggers abroad and in Nigeria. Blogging is something which is slowly picking up in Nigeria and it's really exciting to see the different things people are coming up with daily.
From a blogger perspective, I've had a few experience of working with Nigeria startups looking to market their product and services and it's great! I love the fact that businesses are engaging with bloggers more and more. Obviously, its easier for businesses that have loads of advertising money but for the startups they have to be a little more creative with their ideas.
My first experience of engaging with Nigerian bloggers from a 'work' perspective was when I helped run a housing hunting competition where bloggers were asked to share their experience of looking for a house in Nigeria. There were cash prizes for bloggers and people who sent in entries via emails and dropped comments. Sounds easy enough, right? Share your story and be in a chance to win money.
Well, it definitely was an eye opener!
Sure, we got a number of blogger entries which was our primarily target but there were actually more entries from people who just dropped comments or sent in their entries via email.
Even shockingly, there were more people who re-posted the press release we sent out advertising the competition than there were the actual number of entries! I was gobsmacked! It left me with questions!
Why were more people interested in re-sharing an already published story?
Why didn't more people join in the competition? Was it the cash prize?
Would it have been better if we picked a niche to target? But surly everyone has a house hunting experiences?
Did people think it was a scam? Why?
In the end we sort of concluded most bloggers just weren't interested in creating fresh content and would rather copy existing content, especially if it is first published on a popular website (i.e. Linda Ikeji). This of course is no good because there's no way Google will rank duplicate content on their result pages. However, if one were to re-write the content...
It does seem that for now most Nigerian brands would rather engage with blogger via product reviews, ad banners (which are quite expensive I might add!) and sponsored posts/press releases. Social media engagement also seems to work really well for businesses - keep it short and sweet on Twitter, Facebook & Instragam!
Fidelity bank tried to do some blogger engagement which I blogged about a while ago here but I haven't heard anything about this ever since... quite sad really because it did have a lot of potentials. Considering the little interest we got for our competition I won't be surprised if they were discouraged as well!
I will continue to look out for exciting blogger opportunity and can't wait for someone to blow me a way with something really creative and exicting! Until then, I'll keep trying to blow people away with MY blogger engagement ideas!
What do you think about blogger engagement? Do you have any experience of being contacted as a Nigerian blogger? What did you think about it? Drop me an email or comment below...
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