Canada - Ghana Chamber of Commerce supports business

M The Canada-Ghana Chamber of Commerce (CGCC), has organised a seminar to deepen knowledge of business owners on digital media application to help reposition them grow their companies in a competitive technological environment. The businesspersons were taken through social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Whatsapp and Tweeter as functional and robust powerful tools for marketing business products and services. Mr Maximus Ametorgah, Chief Executive Officer of Popout Limited and Digital Marketing Lead told corporate business to take advantage of the new media trends by “taping into digital media to expand their business.” He quoted copious figures from latest statistics about various digital media tools, and said for instance, as at February 2016, there were 1.6 billion monthly active Facebook users around the globe while 3.5 million Ghanaians were on Facebook. There were also one billion active Whatsapp users, he said, and “Ghana uses whatsapp more creatively than other countries,” since most Ghanaians use the tool for business and social purposes either than for personal usage. He noted that social media tools present huge benefits for business growth since it makes it easier than ever for businesses to directly target customers with marketing campaigns and promote new products or services. Companies could also build brand awareness, personally interact with existing and potential customers via photos, audio or audio-visuals and measure referrals from social media activity to sales, he added. Digital analysts observe that over the past several years, social media has exhibited an exponential penetration into the daily lives of individuals, operations of businesses, and the interaction between governments and people. Citing the Dutch airline KLM that employ about 150 managers of social media to respond to customers enquires within 20 minutes, Mr Ametorgah urged companies to employ social media managers to supervise their platforms for effective use. The president of CGCC, Mr Salah Kweku Kalmoni told the Ghana News Agency that opportunities abound in the social media and Ghanaian businesses ought to exploit to improve performance as other companies have done. “I think some of us have taken advantage, but I think majority of us need to take this advantage, there is a big opportunity of taking advantage of them [social media], not only exposing our goods and services but also getting customer feedback.” “We at the CGCC believe social media is one the new tools for marketing, there are six types [those popular in Ghana] but whatsapp is becoming the new trend, so we focus on that among other things, when you do that it allows you to continue your relationship with your customers.” Mrs Rafiya Yekeen, Sales and Marketing Executive at McDan, a shipping company, expressed joy to have learnt new ways of reaching out and connecting to customers much cheaper and easier. “You know businesses are established to make profits, I am just hoping that this new way of using the social media to market will improve on my business so that I can make profit.” The CGCC is committed to provide vital information and services to facilitate investment flows into Ghana by helping organisations discover attractive investment opportunities in specific industries. The business network enables smaller entities to participate in direct investment by giving them guidance for doing business.