Facebook, in partnership with an Africa based entity Teleperformance, has announced the opening of its first Small Business Group (SBG) Operations Centre in Lagos, Nigeria.  This Centre will provide support to all English speaking advertisers across Sub-Saharan Africa.
The centre aims to build socially and digitally engaged communities of businesses, organizations and civil society leveraging digital platforms. The SMEs can attend online trainings.  However, for those in Nigeria face-to-face trainings will be there, which will focus on how to leverage mobile and social media to build brand awareness, increase sales more meaningfully by connecting with customers.
The project will support advertisers across the region through its Advocacy, Community & Education (ACE) programme. SMEs will receive consultative digital marketing advice from local expert agents. Facebook will support them to find new customers and grow their businesses using Facebook and Instagram platforms. Customers also will also receive scheduled phone calls with marketing experts to create personalized and localised marketing plans that accelerate the growth and development of their businesses. The project is managed and operated by Facebook’s partner, Teleperformance. The project which began operating from mid-July has created full-time jobs for over 35 people.
Experts feel that this is a strategy of Facebook to spread its operations to Africa, where there is a lot of opportunities for enhancing its business and social footprints. Africa is going to be a continent of over 1 billion people very soon and the role that Facebook can play in connecting people and businesses are huge. Of course, by expanding its operations in Africa, Facebook may enjoy the first mover advantage in launching some of its products and solutions.
