Social-First Strategy for Brands in East Africa

East Africa skipped the desktop era. Most of your customers met the internet on a phone, on social, in vertical video, often on Wi-Fi borrowed from a café in Masaki or data bought in 500-shilling bundles. Strategy that ignores that is strategy for someone else's market.

Different platforms, different jobs

Stop posting the same square to every channel. Each platform has a job:

• ✦Instagram is your magazine — beautiful, evergreen, the place a buyer checks before they email you.
• ✦TikTok and Reels are your TV channel — entertainment first, brand second, distribution by algorithm.
• ✦X is your newsroom — fast, opinionated, where journalists and operators live.
• ✦LinkedIn is your boardroom — proof, credibility, the place tenders are quietly decided.
• ✦WhatsApp is your living room — one-to-one, broadcast lists, the highest open rate you'll ever see.

Measure attention, not just reach

Reach is rented. Attention is earned. Watch your average watch time, saves, shares and DMs before you celebrate impressions. A reel with 8,000 views and 200 saves is worth more than one with 80,000 views and three.

Post less, finish more

We'd rather see one brand publish three exceptional pieces a week than thirty average ones. The algorithm rewards completion, comments and saves. Make work people finish.

"Don't make ads. Make things people would miss if you stopped making them."