To some members of the Nigerian social media community, Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo is controversial. But the 50-year-old daughter of a former governor of Oyo State, Dr. Victor Omololu-Olunloyo, says Nigerian youths rather misunderstand her and what she does on social media.
While many spend a lot of time criticising her on online, the United States/Canada-trained pharmacist says she earns between $50 and $150 every time she publishes three tweets for her foreign clients who are mainly musical artistes.
In an online interview with The PUNCH, Kemi, who has spent 25 years on social media, says Nigerian youths are missing the commercial side of the platforms because they chose to attack her and others who mean well for the country.
“In a good month, one can make between $2,000 and $5,000 or even more, depending on what one is putting out on each platform,” she says, describing social media as her life.
With good content, she adds, young Nigerian tweeters can monetize their ...
accounts and earn a decent living promoting companies and artistic works. Advising those who hope to key into the “big opportunity”, she urges them to stop using their handles “in a negative way”.
“You may want to open a separate handle and launch it for a business. Twitter is the best avenue for young Nigerians. Look it up. Indonesian teens make between $10 and $20 by tweeting for every small business out there,” she observes.
With millions of Nigerian youths spending several hours each week on soccer, Kemi says sports present huge prospects for those who want to commercialize their passion.
“Nigerian youths can do what Indonesian teens have done monetizing soccer tweets. They spend so much time with soccer. Why not make money on it?” she asks.
While her critics say she is aggressive, Kemi says she is just being assertive. According to her, this is a major trait that drives a successful social media entrepreneurship.
The pharmacist, who spent 37 years in the United States, is just beginning to get positive reviews from a few Nigerians who appreciate her for “being blunt, real and transparent” about all issues affecting the country.
“I have gone after the masses, pastors, politicians, educationists and others. Many Nigerians are silent about the issues they need to be discussing. Many are scared,” she says.
Based on her huge following on MySpace, Kemi claims that the Facebook team contacted her to join the newly established university social network as “beta tester” in February 2004, making her the first Nigerian to sign up on the popular site.
Besides, she says she is among the first Africans in Canada and the US to sign on Twitter, Instagram other social media.
She declares, “In December 2003, Andrew McCollumn contacted me from Facebook in an e-mail saying they were interested in me as I had 100,000 friends on MySpace. I agreed and in February 2004, Facebooklaunched as a university social network. Later in 2006, it rolled out to the public. This event made me the first Nigerian on Facebook. I later joined Instagram October 10, 2010, four days after it was released. By 2011, I joined Pinterest. Currently, I am again a beta tester for the new social network called Ello.”
Kemi, who says she has no regret engaging in social media, notes that all she does now is working on a computer from her Ibadan home to earn money.
She adds, “On Twitter, I aggregate world news and monetize tweets. For example, I have Canadian and American musicians that tweet their music with me. A typical affordable tweet package is three tweets for $50 to $150 per tweet. I tweet their tracks to my followers.
“While abroad, there were companies that hired me to tweet reality shows, award shows and live events. That was very lucrative.”
An apostle of social media monetisation, the former governor’s daughter says she also earns income posting engaging topics on Facebook. Once such topics go virile, according to her, she publishes the comments for her 16 million-view blog – another stream of her online income.
Often, Kemi, who goes after the rich and poor Nigerians, making her position as clear and blunt as possible, insists that she is just being confident.
The social media personality, who this year emerged one of the Social Media Awards Africa finalists in the top influence category, says most of her terms are “Internet acronyms used to shout down bullies who do not want to learn.”
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