According to the GSMA’s Mobile Economy 2021, 40% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s population will be connected to the internet by 2025. To allow brands and communication agencies to reach that growing client base and let social media users earn money by facilitating that outreach, Wowzi is developing mobile solutions. 

Wowzi is a Kenyan startup that connects social media users with advertising agencies and brands. The startup was co-founded, in 2019, by Mike Otieno, Hassan Bashir, and Brian Mogeni. 

Via its mobile app -available on PlayStore only- it helps content creators earn money by publishing brand messages on their pages and accounts. The startup focuses on pages and accounts with less than 10,000 followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok for authentic engagement. Unlike influencers with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers, those accounts and pages have better trust relationships with the followers, which translates to better engagement.  

“Brands want to have more authentic engagements or endorsements for products, from people who use and love them and can talk about real practical applications. Our campaigns show that nano influencers deliver better sales leads because of the higher trust with their following,” explains Johnny Falla, chief development and growth officer at Wowzi. 

“We offer a really comprehensive reporting dashboard online. So, brands can check in to see exactly what happened, what posts were made by the influencers, which ones performed the best, and analytics of the demographics for people who were actually reached,” he adds. 

To earn money with Wowzi, social media users need to register and provide detailed information that will allow the startup to assess eligibility. As for brands and advertising agencies, they must create an account, set up advertising campaigns, select the social media users they want to work with, brief the selected users, and monitor performances through the dedicated dashboard. 

Wowzi currently claims more than 50,000 registered nano-influencers, 150 clients (advertising agencies and brands), and 15,000 campaigns already launched.  Its services have already been used by renowned groups like Netflix, Coca-Cola, and Nestlé. It is already present in eight African countries but, it plans to expand further, in Nigeria, Ghana, and South Africa notably. For that purpose, in late December 2021, it secured US$3.2 million to fund its expansion plan and upgrade infrastructure. 

Adoni Conrad Quenum