This feature on marketing through brand infuencers in Kenya was first written and published by Bob Oyier: If you own a brand, celebrities are just good for visibility, not driving sales. Except one celeb.

Micro and Nano influencers are the best people to drive your sales up. Nano influencers in Kenya typically have a social media following of less than 2k; Micro influencers less than 50k.

If today Mubea posts how internet service company X is the most reliable in terms of pricing, internet speeds, customer care response, refund policies during downtime etc, most people will take it as kawaida satisfied customer feedback.

That’s because of the way we interact with Mubea on a daily basis to the point he’s just like a good friend or guy next door whose opinions we can at least trust.

Mubea actually has a higher influencing impact on his audience than say Jalas who if he were to do the same, most of us will just know “Wewe umelipwa na hiyo kampuni.”

If you want organic growth, you would pay someone like Mubea. If your business is only interested in Likes, pay Jalas.

Secondly, if you are looking to drive real sales, you should look for specialist influencers. That is, people who are considered by their following to be an expert in that field.

There is a time my small bro told me, “There is a huuge difference between an influencer and someone with a huge following.”

Akothee: How I saved Sh. 2 million monthly from my bills

In Kenya you find someone who has pumped a few millions opening a fitness center running to Huddah who has 3m Insta followers to advertise for them instead of approaching, say, Frankie Just Gym It who despite having ‘a mere’ 100k followers is a known fitness enthusiast and specialist.

Huddah can probably convince me to buy red lipstick for myself, but even at gun point can’t make me sign up for gym membership.

Third, and related to the above point, when we are following hot tea on Edgar Obare we won’t be pausing to click on your ad, sorry. We skip them VERY FAST. If we could use Adblock on them we would. I mean, this is by far the dumbest marketing strategy anyone can pay for but we all know what they say about a fool and his money.

Put 10 tea enthusiasts in a room and have them follow Obare’s hottest tea then ask them how many ads they remember.

I’m not saying it’s entirely useless; it just doesn’t give value for money. You might get a few followers and a handful of enquiries, but that 8k would have gotten you far better sales had you used a relevant micro influencer.

Four, if you own a brand, the best platform to pick influencers from is Facebook, not Instagram. I see brands pay celebs hundreds of thousands to post them on their handles only for 70% of the comments to be fire emojis () and the remaining 30% are “Follow me, I follow back.” Zero enquiries.

If a Facebook micro-influencer were to talk about your brand, you can be sure 80% of the comments will be relevant to your brand. Either people who have interacted with it differently, enquiries etc.

You will know exactly what people think of your brand.

Five, the only popular celeb worth a KES 1m quote in Kenya is Akothee because that woman goes all in for the brands she endorses. She stops at nothing to give you value for your money. You’ll get both the following and the sales.