Do you know that the internet contributes
to over $2.2 trillion in annual retail sales?
Or that the total number of WordPress
users rivals the entire population of
Turkey? The internet has now become such
a force to reckon with, responsible for
trillions of dollars in direct and indirect
revenue annually, and understanding how it
contributes to the growing world economy
will only help your business grow.
There was a time when the social media was
considered a passing trend that’s only for the
“tech savvy kids” and that it can never be
used for anything serious like business or
education, these skepticisms have been
proven wrong overtime as there are 3.26
billion Internet users this December with
more than 2 billion of them having active
social media accounts. Social media can
generate huge amounts of data about
customer in real time, there are more than
1.79 billion monthly active users on Facebook
that generate 4.5 billion likes daily, twitter
has more than 500 million monthly users that
generate over a 100 million tweets everyday.
Instagram has a total of 600 million monthly
active users and 300 million daily active
users. The economic opportunities offered by
the social media are huge if only used for the
right purposes. The Internet is fortified with
extremely powerful learning tools like
YouTube with millions of video tutorial on
nearly everything ,all that is required of a
person is to have the entrepreneurial mindset
and the will to learn and monetize these
skills.. Popular social media platforms have
now become marketing Giants offering SMEs
with unique businesses tools responsible for
the spontaneous growth of startups to million
dollar empires in no time.

A statistical study by the United Nations in
2014 showed a direct link between Internet
penetration and drastic reduction of poverty.
ThIe Internet is so powerful that you can use
it to 1.learn s skill 2.develop it to a product or
service 3. Market and sell it online. And this
is not just another global phenomenon,it also
applies to Africa and Nigeria in particular as
we are leading in the continent with regards
to Internet penetration breaking the record of
97.21 million internet users in 2016 according
to NCC, we also have highest number of social
media users,according to Facebook 16 million
Nigerians visit Facebook monthly beating
Sout. h Africa’s 12 million and Kenya’s 4.5
million monthly users. According to NCC 83%
of Nigerians used the Internet for shopping in
2016 as the population becomes more internet
savvy and price conscious, people now tend to
want to do a thorough research on products
and find best prices before throwing their
monies around. With that being said I think
it’s unwise for any Nigerian business owner
to ignore the significance of building a
comprehensive and meaningful online
presence. Social media platforms provide a
unique opportunity for small businesses to
meet many prospective leads and convert
them to loyal customers, it allows the
businesses to gain free inputs from customers
to enable businesses improve and grow.

Small business have now with the help of
social media become global brands and can
sell across the globe with direct contact to
unique customers. I will like to tell you of a
sensational entrepreneur Gary Veynerchuck
who took over his family’s wine shop and
grew it from #3m to #60 million dollars in just
5 years using the Internet and ,he’s now an
angel investor with investments in Facebook,
twitter, uber and other big investments.
Another interesting Internet success story is
story of two sisters from Zimbabwe that
started as for fun street photographers which
later transformed to the biggest fashion blog
in Africa and around the world, this blog later
gave birth to a very unique African fashion
label called Mafashio which was chosen in the
top 10 fashion talents in the “Future voices ”
completion.
Online shopping platforms like Zuvaa are able
to globalize African fashion by shining lights
on Talented African designers and creating
link between the designers and the global
market. These are not just stories because I
can personally relate to this important
phenomenon,my brother an I started a
clothing line about a year ago with the help
of social media we made about 125 sales in 2
months nationally and internationally that’s
equivalent to about N 625,000 ..now I’m not
saying we are we we should be yet but we
are working on improving and uplifting our
capacity as a company ,this is all due to the
effective utilization of these social media
platforms. I know of a photographer that goes
by the name Madugu Photography that started
his business 9months ago, taught himself how
to take pictures using YouTube, uses
Instagram to promote his work and is now
rubbing shoulders with big names in the
photography business and this is all due to
the effective utilization of the Internet and
the social media. There is no excuse for being
unemployed nowadays,use your internet
wisely.

The giant social media platforms recognize
the unique needs of business which lead to
the creation of special “for business features/
profiles”which “which allows businesses to
add their Geo location,email addresses and
contact numbers. There’s no excuse to being
unemployed on this Internet age,all the
resources required to build successful
business is yours for the taking,all you need
to do is use the social media effectively.


http://katsinapost.com/2017/01/02/opinion-leveraging-the-power-of-internet-for-wealth-creation-by-naufal-ahmad/