Making social media work for you

Octavia Tsibes
Shona Ngava

Social media is just not a means to communicate with each one another anymore, for Alan Mwinga spending time on social media is not just a hobby but his job. He works for as a social media specialist for Advantage Y&R an advertising agency in Windhoek.

Some of his duties include coming up with marketing and advertising strategies for clients and managing social media accounts for various companies. “As a social media specialist you manage an online community. Your job is to respond to queries, respond to comments and inbox and just talk to people online. You are basically a moderator,” says Mwinga

He says as a social media specialist one has to come up with content that is relevant and creative for the audience that will consume and use it. “A lot of social media is based on new media. You have to come up with short videos, Gifs, snaps and infographics. When you are handling social media accounts you need to make content that moves and grabs people’s attention,” says Mwinga. A chunk of his job is spend going through analytics for the campaigns he works on. “If you are managing a certain online community you need to measure the impact of what you publish for them and how they respond to the content you put out on social media,” he says.

He advises the youth to be cautious about what they post on social media because it has the potential of making or breaking their potential depending on how they use their social media accounts. “Everyone is a brand whether you like it or not. Whether you are online or offline you are a brand and you need to take good care of that brand in order for you to become successful. Majority of employers these days look you up on social media before they give you a job and depending on what you post there you might get the job or not. Take care of your personal brand and be very aware of what you post online.” he advised.

Interesting facts about social media:

· Namibia has a social media website called NamHook where Namibians can interact with one another.

· There are 2.3 billion active social media users.

· Internet users have an average of 5.54 social media accounts.

· The first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users.

· Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp handle 60 billion messages a day

· In 2016 there were 392 181 Internet Users in Namibia

· here are just over 3 billion active Internet users (45% of the world’s internet users)

· Nearly 2.1 billion people have social media accounts

· Close to 1.7 billion people have active social media accounts