New social media trends in Ghana
The peculiarities of a nation are most evident in the attitudes of its people, their approach to life, work or interpersonal relationships, the passion with which they follow and participate in certain sporting or political events.
Nowadays, in an era dominated by the more mature fruits of technology, the characteristics that identify a nation can also be found in the different ways in which new technologies, and in particular social media, are used, which have contributed decisively to revolutionising the daily lives of billions of people. By analysing data on social media usage, or even data on the most popular social trends among the population, one could very well ascertain which nation or part of the world they belong to, even without knowing their identity in advance. The distinctive traits of a country, nowadays, are also drawn online, in the variegated and multicoloured world of social media, and in the set of contents that are posted, shared or liked every day, by millions of individuals, one can vaguely discern a fuzzy shape that corresponds exactly to the national identity of a people, to its culture, to everything that excites or strikes a particular chord in the people who make it up.
The analysis of online behaviour
Analysis tools focused on social media are also of immense use for brands, for all those companies that, for one reason or another, decide to invest in a certain country, or to reserve part of their operational strategies for commercial penetration in a certain country of the world. Nowadays, it is no longer enough to carry out a careful market analysis, accompanied by research and data on consumer behaviour, before carrying out such an operation. Nowadays, one also needs information of a completely different kind, which can be found in the vast ocean of the net, and specifically in the virtual platforms known as social media, which have for some time now taken the place of traditional media, becoming to all intents and purposes the new media.
In this era, in fact, it is not enough to know the consumer’s buying habits and tastes, i.e. everything that (still today) goes into the conceptual processing of the buyer persona. Companies need to know exactly what consumers’ social habits are, what their favourite social media is, what time and days they access it most often (and why), so that they can place advertising content in the right place, at the right time, and targeted at the right person.
Some numbers
Out of about nine million users browsing social media (Kepios data for early 2022), in Ghana the most popular social network seems by far to be Facebook, which attracts more than 7 million users. The penetration capacity of advertising messages on Facebook, in Ghana, is indeed considerable: this content reaches 41.5% of all Internet users, with a clear predominance of men over women (60.3%, compared to 39.7% for women). Other social media such as Instagram or Twitter attract far fewer Ghanaians: Instagram is used on average by 2.2 million Ghanaians, while the number of users who use Twitter does not even reach 1 million. The gender component is also of paramount importance, as it can allow specific brands to decide whether or not to invest in a country where the network is mostly used by men or women.
Some brands, particularly those specialising in online entertainment, may decide to direct their operational strategies towards a large number of nations, regardless of the gender of the people using the Internet or social media. This is the case with some of the best online portals dedicated to casino games, which allow each player to find the kind of entertainment that best suits his or her personal characteristics. The very useful reviews on the site are in fact extremely useful for any player, even those approaching the world of gaming for the first time, but also for all those players who, despite having some experience in the field, continue to have some difficulty in finding the game that best suits their tastes. These reviews were created precisely for this reason, to solve the practical problems of finding the right game and to allow anyone to start enjoying themselves quickly, without any obstacles.
People’s behaviour on social networks, and more generally on the net, can allow brands to create ad hoc content and serve it to its potential consumer in a discreet, subtle way, so light that he or she will not even notice it.