Thread by @SokoAnalyst

Social Media Evolution, Impact, and Top Online Influencers in Kenya sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #Top50

Who is your favorite account that you never miss their content on a day to day basis?

Thread…

Human’s impulse to communicate, stay in touch with the world, and the advances in technology, have had a profound effect on the evolution of social media #Top50

And in a little more than a decade, its impact has gone from being an entertaining extra to a fully integrated part of nearly every aspect of daily life for many sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #Top50

Social media has grown beyond establishing and nurturing personal connections at scale. What began as a desktop/laptop experience has significantly shifted to mobile devices and tablets as cellular services and phone proliferation expanded #Top50

Smartphone penetration, high-speed internet, & enabling tech, have become more readily available in homes, businesses, & public spaces. Incidentally, with the advent of social media apps that run on smartphones, end users have taken their communities with them wherever they went

Amidst the craze, businesses took advantage of this new consumer mobility by serving their customers new, simpler methods of interacting — and new ways of buying goods and services #Top50

The most notable impact of social media has been on marketing. It has been regarded as an instrumental strategy in bridging the gap between business and consumer, creating channels of communication, and helping businesses build lasting relationships with audiences #Top50

Many companies now rely heavily on social media to shape their brand image, as consumer feedback is almost instantaneous. Due to the increased accessibility of people and resources within companies, it has also had an impact on recruitment practices, educational programs #Top50

and personal development opportunities within companies – all these have been expedited by the surge in online activity #Top50

According to Hootsuite’s 2021 Digital Report, the number of internet users across the globe stood at 4.80B people by July 2021 – that’s almost 61% of the world’s total population. The number is still growing and in the past 12 months alone, 257M new users came online #Top50

Interestingly, internet users are currently growing at an annual rate of 5.7 percent, equating to an average of more than 700,000 new users each day #Top50

The global social media users by July 2021 had reached 4.48 billion, equal almost 57 percent of all the people on Earth. The number of social media users has increased by 13.1 percent over the past 12 months #Top50

The report further states that 520 million new users joined social media between July 2020 and July 2021, equating to growth of more than 1.4 million new users every day #Top50

This increase in online connectivity has given businesses new ways to reach customers through content development and promotion. Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and TikTok are currently the most popular social networking networks #Top50

Facebook is the number one most used social media site today with July numbers showing that the users had reached 2.853 billion people! #Top50

When it began, social media served to help end-users connect digitally with friends, colleagues, family members, and like-minded individuals they might never have met in person #Top50

But it began with desktop access which made it easy to grow free online communities without ever leaving the house sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #Top50

Then smartphones came, and social media was liberated from the confinements of desktops and personal computers. The most popular social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn thrived in the mobile app environment #Top50

Better advancements followed, thanks to improved cameras and performance capabilities of smartphones. On top of instant messaging, end-users could now broadcast in real-time sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #Top50

Instagram became the app of choice for social media users interested in travel, entertainment, fashion, and other visually-oriented topics #Top50 sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #SokoNews

With the growth of social media, companies moved online, and the business applications of Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms began to take shape. These sites provided easy access to some of the richest trackable user data ever conceived #Top50

On top of placing ads on social media platforms, companies uncovered the potential utility of cultivating an active, engaged social media presence. The platform has grown to become a hub for businesses to: #Top50

The combination of advertising, or paid social media marketing, with organic social media outreach, resulted in the digital marketing specialty known as social media marketing. This subsequently gave rise to influencer marketing #Top50

There is no specific criteria used for the following ranking. They are solely the views of the writer and the popularity of the said persons online #Top50

Note: Give us feedback to : [e-mail] or @sokodirectory on your views. You as the reader are KING 👑/QUEEN.

Thought Leaders/Business/Politics
@dchandaria
@TabithaKaranja
@sunnybindra
@SokoAnalyst
@ahmednasirlaw
@gabrieloguda
@Ginadin
@janetmachuka_
@WehliyeMohamed
@Asmali77
@OleItumbi
@bonifacemwangi #Top50

Media
@KoinangeJeff
@LarryMadowo
@MwalimChurchill
@TerryanneChebet

sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #Top50 #SokoNews

Of course, there are a lot of other thought leaders, industry experts, opinion shapers, and marketers not covered on this list. It is, however, worth noting that it is not the number of followers you have, that makes you an influencer #Top50

For more on who are the most influential Kenyans in diverse fields across the social media realm, please log onto: sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #Top50 and share. Our readers could be on your TL.

Despite a recent study that says Facebook is better with engagement than Twitter, these corporates have shown that is still vital for most companies to have a presence on other platforms such as Twitter as well #Top50

Wondering which accounts to follow for the best content online? Wonder no more. We at @sokodirectory have sorted that for you. sokodirectory.com/2021/08/social… #Top50