“The language of the web mob is not in diction, it is PASSION!”
– Aderemi Ojikutu
(President & Chief Consultant, Blogging Resources International Ventures)
Being Snippets of the Speech Delivered By Mr. Aderemi Ojikutu on 22nd May, 2008, at THE GOLDEN GATE RESTAURANT, IKOYI, LAGOS. On the occasion of LUNCH WITH 50 CEOs, organized and activated by PROGRAMOS SOFTWARE LIMITED.
“The world is shrinking! Global borders are disappearing!!!” That is the growing ‘wake up’ call to CEOs of corporate Nigeria, which has begun to gather momentum. That call is for the translation of their off-line successes into on-line exploits. Today, (May 2008), a quarter of the 6 billion world populations are active internet users seeking unique products and services, and are ready to pay a global price, at a global currency for those services.
Those 1.5 billion audiences organize to search for information ‘gold mines’, 80 billion times monthly, for services and products that meet their dire needs, and in the process, paying $25 Billion Dollars monthly, for those services and products!
It is not an overstatement to say that the growth of the global economy in the last 16 years was partly induced by the unbelievable growth of the internet over the same coincidental period. That phenomenal boom created awesome opportunities for entrepreneurs, investors and venture capitalist to leverage huge incomes, by taking advantage of the ‘web surge’, through savvy web optimization skills.
THE BEST TRADERS SHOULD GET THE BEST LEVERAGE!
It is time for Corporate Nigeria to put a value on her web profile. Global standards, Global metrics, Global rates have begun to find a responsive echo in our market and society, all because of the shrinking borders.
Who else could be a better buyer or seller in our society than Corporate Nigeria? Yes, that is what we are: guru buyers and guru sellers! Many of our companies are far older than the internet which is less than 16 years old in its commercial essence. Unfortunately, this teenage internet industry that corporate Nigeria had successfully ignored is on the verge trouncing and overthrowing our cherished offline heritage and commercial accomplishments.
That is why today’s forum of “LUNCH WITH CEOs” organized by PROGRAMOS SOFTWARE LIMITED, is highly commendable. The internet has become the most potent tool of communication and wealth acquisition. In the next five years, if Corporate Nigeria would not wake up to this new challenge, our ‘buying and selling game’ would have become obsolete and fit only for commercial archives!
The millennial CEO in Nigeria is already proficient with the computer machine, but is still found wanting in matters of web literacy and optimization. If that gap is not closed very soon, web quacks and cyber touts would take over and rip our hard-earned accomplishments to pieces
The era of urging people to be “computer literate” has long expired, that is best left for retirees, and the police force. The new lexicon of web literacy and web optimization has crept into the vocabulary of the internet public, and corporate CEOs must not be caught napping.
Thank God for the Jet-Age, but the Web-Age is 100-times faster and more comfortable than the Jet-Age! From the palm of your hands, or on your lap, you can connect anywhere in the world from your bedroom, without boarding any jet liner. I humorously told a CEO client recently that if the Jet Age took us to Space, the Web Age would literally take us to heaven.
If corporate Nigeria occupies her rightful place on the web as corporate players, it would out-perform her current lofty offline accomplishments 100 times over!
THE WEB AS THE NEW ROUTE TO THE MARKET
According to the global internet information center, INTERNIC, Nigeria’s internet users population tripled, in the last three years, from 3.5 million to over 10 million today, leading other African nations from the ‘off-line jungle’, ahead of South Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, which had 6 million each.
The internet has become a potent tool hijacked from the hands of one heroic and skillful writer or a corporate zealot, by a passion-driven web mob, and transformed into a mass medium vehicle that serves the passion of the mob. Over 90% of active internet users are people seeking for a platform or community to share their common passions. Wherever these seekers go, they create a buzz that makes great things happen there.
Have you ever wondered how the people we regarded as dregs and scumbags, becoming musicians succeeded and ‘arrived’ at fame and fortune? It is not so much because of talent but because they played to the gallery of the mob.
The mob is a passion-driven crowd of people bent on fulfilling their passion. The mob has taken over the web space, and has propelled unimaginable successes for those who subscribed to her ‘music’. Corporate Nigeria should not look enviously at mob success on the web with envy, we must plug into that market with acquisition of web skills and also with a platform (website) that could profitably tap into that hidden fortune.
The profound lessons learnt from the phenomenon of mob success on the web is that: Anything that captivates the imagination of men and women, driving them to actionable movement, would create a mob situation, and … of course, commercial web success.
Corporate Nigeria has a compelling obligation to tap into these ‘mob energy’ with our commercial grasps of the market trend and awesome potential of an awakening Nigerian economy.
At the heights of web success are social networking sites and blogs. Business networking sites are not as successful as the mob-driven social networks. The social networks like Nairaland Forum and Telenovela Love Stories blogs are the ones that occupy the pinnacle of Nigerian web space. Just like FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Skype, dominate the global webspace.
Google and Microsoft have paved the path to web reconciliation by approaching the mob-driven social networks, buying part of the ‘insane’ traffic of visitors for their own commercial profiting and to service their billion-Dollar enterprise.
Corporate Nigeria must not be left out of this global trend. Let’s get down there and get that mob up to dance to our tune, which is pleasing to their ears, and would be highly profiting to our corporate purse and goals.
Though the mob may be despised as a band-wagon crowd, nevertheless, it is a potent internet dynamo, when channeled or guided into productive and profitable ends.
When that mob votes for your product or brand, you will automatically win any competition and rule the commercial waves. This mob is to be courted and ‘toasted’, and not despised.
The Web mob is not a passive readers club. It is a hyperactive, independent, opinionated, participatory and contributory group of people online.
Mob action on the web is a trade secret for commercial web success that no agency or corporate player worth her salt should ignore. When you tap into that kind of audience on the web, the result is always terrific.
Every mob has a language and seasonal wave. The language of the web mob is not in diction, it is PASSION! Once you subscribe to that passion, once you plug into the movement, it would carry you to the crest of commercial success. Moreover, we are in the season of the mob, to ignore them would be to our commercial peril.
If there is anything to prove in the last five years, which has been proved again and again, it is the fact that the web race is not to the swift, neither is web victory to the strong and mighty web household names. The last five years in the frenzied history of the web is strewn with defeats and overthrows of renowned web leaders by web newcomers who understood the changed times and seized the opportunity of the momentum provided by the web mob.
There was nothing called YouTube until 5 years ago. MySpace is a new-comer into web space, so is FaceBook. These and others have overthrown traditional web leaders like Yahoo!, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft Network (MSN) in many social web metrics today
There is football mob on web, the horror movie mob, the thriller movie mob, the erotic video mob, lotto mob, gambling mob, religious mob, etc. The secret to commercial web success is plugging into the passion of these mobs via giving them a platform of expression.
The phenomenal rise of Barack Obama in the U.S elections in the last 16 months is a product of the Web 2.0 Mob. From the obscurity of a freshman Senator, the web mob promoted him above every candidate of the powerful political establishment.
The Clinton political dynasty could not find a conventional answer to the political riddle posed by the unprecedented political and racial breakthroughs, of the mob-driven Obama movement.
In less than 16 months, that mob catapulted OBAMA online campaign funds above an unprecedented U$D200 million. That is more than doubled the U$D109 million fortune garnered over the last 8 years by the revered Clinton political dynasty.
That is what the web mob is capable of, if given a platform to vent their diverse pent-up passions and emotions.
We must be creative enough to harness the explosive energy of the web mob for our commercial success.
Aderemi Ojikutu
(President and Chief Consultant) Blogging Resources International Ventures.
WEBSITE: WEB KONSULT Email: ceo@web-konsult.com
Phone: 018973859, 07033342535, 07028846055
A Best-Graduating student of Econometrics, from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. A prodigious scholar and robust research Economist, he had served on many of Nigeria’s Federal Government Committees, including the National Economic Commission, and the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) Forex Allocation Committee (1994).
He is a Blogging and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategist, and pioneer in Africa. A web mentor, tutor and editor of profound skills. Having authored quite a few books, his consummate passion for writing culminated into blogging, which led to the meteoric rise of the blog which he inspired, at peak point, becoming the 3rd most popular indigenous website in Nigeria, after THE PUNCH Newspapers and the NAIRALAND FORUM, commanding a crowd of over 5,000 daily global unique visitors, with 32,000+ daily page views.
He is a web consultant to many institutions in the academia, government agencies and also many corporate outfits in the software development, Nigerian capital market, public relations and media advertising Industries.