Mobile Telecommunication Network (MTN) Ghana has built the capacity of some artisans in the Upper West Region to leverage social media as a tool to boost their businesses and enhance incomes.
A total of 40 artisans, including hairdressers, dressmakers, tailors and barbers, participated in the two-day training on social media content creation and usage as part of the MTN’s annual Y’ello Care programme.
Speaking at the workshop in Wa at the weekend, Mr Seth Owusu Nyamekye, the MTN Territory Manager in charge of the Upper West Region, encouraged the participants to take the training very seriously.
He said effective use of social media such as Facebook, Tiktok and Twitter could transform their businesses and fortunes by targeting clients beyond their localities.
“As we speak now you can’t do anything without social media, and it is something that, if you leverage it as a business, it is going to increase your profit margin because you are not going to target people just within where you operate.
Social media has become the norm of the day and the best way to drive your business is through the social media platform”, he explained.
Mr Nyamekye entreated the participants to put the knowledge they acquired at the training into practice to help develop their businesses as well as to extend it to their colleagues who could not participate in the training.
He indicated that all the artisans at the workshop would receive MTN merchant SIM cards for easy and seamless financial transactions with their customers.
Mr Abdul Fatawu Mahabub, the Media Assistant at NoniHub, the workshop facilitator, took the participants through social media marketing and creating social media posts and engaging caption about their businesses.
The participants were also taken through how to post social media videos and images and how to create “hashtags” (#) with key words about their businesses, products and services.
“It is going to help them reach a wide range of audience and also increase their sales”, Mr Mahabub told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview.
Some participants, who also spoke to the GNA, expressed the hope that the skills they acquired at the workshop would impact their businesses greatly.
Madam Rashida Seidu, a hairdresser in Wa, said she was previously oblivious of the importance of social media platforms such as Facebook and twitter to her business development.
The participants expressed gratitude to MTN Ghana for the intervention and prayed that it would be a regular intervention for them to enable them grow their businesses.
