Online sensation?
My friend Ruth has been labelled this tag. But can you imagine how much her talent pays us?
For whoever invented social media apps, God bless them. Ruth and I turned her talent into a cash cow that makes us quite a fortune on campus.
Ruth is a choreographer, a self-taught one. Funny enough, she learnt and perfected her art via Tik-Tok, Instagram and YouTube.
The first time we met in the hallway of the hostels, I knew she was destined for greatness.
She was flexing. Her posture, alignment, balance, coordination, control, flexibility, mobility and strength were all intriguing.
With her as the sensation and I as the camera person, we ventured into stardom. I crafted an idea that would propel us to fame.
Armed with a ring light, a phone for shooting and editing, the journey began.
Her first few videos got over 50,000 views on Tik-Tok.
“How did this happen, Aisha?” Ruth asked me, still in disbelief.
“You are talented obviously, it would have happened sooner or later!” I responded.
Ruth laughed, “What a way to start. Let us do more, experiment with short videos and trends”
We used to do the videos for fun, till we showed our lecturer how the videos were performing and she was amazed.
“This is a great venture. You have the potential to turn this into an income opportunity,” she told us.
But how.
“I know an influencer who can guide you around. Social media pays and we have seen models, actors, musicians sprout and rise to fame for such skits,” she added.
Serah was famous. We shied in her presence after walking into one of her shoots.
She was so professional and had an entire team comprising a director, a producer and other crew.
“For a seven seconds Tik-Tok video!” Ruth wondered.
“Yes, haa! Seven seconds of fame. In here I have advertised seven different cloth brands,” Serah responded and took us through the whole process.
It was more demanding than we thought.
“All you have to do is learn how to tweak the data and how to keep your followers entertained.
“Creative videos will always be shared,” Serah added and in fact did a short video with Ruth.
It blew up. An agency called us the same day and asked if we were willing to advertise its products targeting students on campus.
Clothes, perfumes, jewellery, hair brands, name them all. We set up shop, but we had challenges on payment at first.
“I saw you indicated on the form that you have a Co-op bank account right?” the marketer asked.
“Yes, I do,” Terry responded.
“You can promote your goods and services online through a website, and social media apps. You can get more customers by accepting online card payments via Chapa Pay that is Co-op Bank’s eCommerce solution!”
“You can get more and more customers by accepting online card payments via Co-opBank eCommerce solution! With Co-op Bank eCommerce you receive a unique link (Pay-By-Link) that you’ll use to invoice their customers.
She further explained that we will not incur any cost to get the Pay-By-Link solution as it is free to get on board.
“If a customer makes a wrong payment, you can reverse the payment without calling the bank for a reversal,” she added.
Don’t even mention it. The business is booming and my girl is getting more and more corporates on board.
She has been to a number of TV stations for interviews and next month, when we close for holidays, we are off to the Coast for a vacay.
With me as her official manager and her mother as a financial adviser.