Why your business should do a social media takeover

WINDHOEK, APRIL 17 – Recent statistics from NapoleonCat indicate that they were 579 300 Facebook users of which 220 000 were aged between 25 to 34 while they were 193 500 Instagram users of which 71 000 were aged between 18 to 24 as of March 2019 in Namibia. With such a significant part of the population being active on social media, there is every reason for your brand to want to increase its visibility on these social media platforms.

One way of doing this is through having a social media influencer takeover your social media accounts with the sole purpose of providing relevant content to your followers. This content can either be information that you created yourself or their experience of your products/services. The advantage of such an arrangement is that your brand can benefit from the “influencers” followers and personal approach in providing information related to your organisation.

However, when doing such an undertaking they are certain aspects you need to consider to ensure that the social media takeover is successful. The first thing that your organisation should decide upon is who will takeover your social media accounts. Will you choose a celebrity or an employee who has a massive following on social media? The benefits of each will depend on what your organisation would like to achieve out of the social media takeover. Another consideration that you must determine is whether the influencer will takeover all your social media accounts or only one of them. This will ensure that the content they generate speaks to the audience that follows that account.

One of the most important things that you should do is to create a framework that determines what exactly you want out of this social media takeover. Things you can look at are how long will they takeover the accounts, how many posts will they create but most importantly you must provide your brands do’s and don’ts to avoid any surprises. Although, you must avoid having many limitations as this might drown the influencer’s voice and personality. After having communicated your expectations, you then need to provide the influencer with access to your social media accounts for them to get ready to start posting.

Mufaro Nesongano – Corporate Communications and Online Media Manager.

Something not to forget is to promote the social media takeover to your followers to have them look forward to it. Also, this will help them understand when they start seeing posts on their feeds that don’t seem like the way you usually post as a business.

If your organisation decides to go this route to increase its awareness, it should also ensure to evaluate the social media takeover once it’s done to correct things that might not have gone according plan. Nevertheless, one sure thing is that as organisations, one cannot avoid the impact social media influencers have.

Mufaro Njabulo Nesongano: NWR Corporate Communications and Online Media Manager