Social Media Can Grow Businesses In Ghana Says CEO ExtraO (@CEOExtraO)

With the plunging state of the economy in these times, loads of business owners in an attempt to reduce their expenses may have generally decreased their budgets on our traditional marketing strategies. However it seems companies may have just found a much simpler and innovative way to replace these traditional marketing systems.

The well-acclaimed social media expert Mr. Basil Anthony in an exclusive interview on Citi fm’s Traffic avenue on Thursday 12th June 2014 hosted by the ace radio presenter Jessica Opare-Sarfo shared on this light of hope for businesses and companies.

On sharing his expert view on the subject matter, he first and foremost touched on the cost difference between our traditional marketing tools as against social media marketing. He stated that the cost price of our Traditional media, most especially TV, radio and print media (mostly billboards and newspapers) could cost an arm and a leg.

He further on explained that these other marketing alternatives run on short campaign durations as compared to social media which cost way less and has a much more effective way of targeting the right audience for your brand or service communication. He sighted a very practical example of a full-page advertisement on our popular newspapers, which could cost an average of 3000ghc per issue date.

Whiles the same value of money spent in an advertisement on a Facebook platform for example, could reach an audience of well over 1,000,000 people out of a potential 2.4 million Ghanaians currently signed up on Facebook. This he accentuated gave companies the opportunity to meet more potential clients as per numbers as compared to the measly quantities of newspapers produced a day by our publication houses.

The CEO ExtraO as he is popularly known, rhetorically asked listeners if they would not be enthused with the idea of owning their own media houses, mainly mainstream radio or television. He buttressed on this analogy by explaining how easy and simple it was to actually make that possible. He explained that unknown to novice of social media use, you could actually own your for free a “media house” by creating a fan page for your brand, product, service, organization, community, etc.

And begin to invite your immediate friends within your personal social network and go on further to run Facebook advertisement campaigns with which a minimum amount of about 250ghc a week could fetch your page at least 500 new likes weekly. Not losing sight of the fact that these people willingly joined your page and clearly showed some form of interest in what you advertised. This initiates a communication pattern from then on and you can now interact to them on this page absolutely free.

He summed up his interview by explaining the principle of immediacy and permanency with regards to social media marketing and other marketing platforms. With his remarkable sense of humor he jokingly quizzed if any listener had ever seen anyone climb a billboard to delete/erase or replace information about an advertisement before.

He connected this to the permanence and alteration of information over social media as compared to print/visual media. He elaborated further on the immediacy of how quick some kinds of information could be disseminated to the people via social media as compared to newspapers for example, which can take at least 24hrs to be printed and distributed across the country.

In conclusion the CEO ExtraO emphasized that social media was the best alternative for any smart business man who wanted to spend less and still reach potential clients. He stressed that social media had come to stay and would gradually take over come what may.