Over 50 small scale business owners in the Upper West Region were on Friday, given hands on training on creating and effectively using social media and other digital platforms for business activities.
The business owners who were mostly women and traded in local commodities such as smock, dawadawa and shea products, among others, were assisted through creating business and marketing platforms on social media handles such as WhatsApp, Twitter, linked-in and Facebook.
Speaking to the media on the rationale for the programme which was christened Skills Drive Project, the Programmes Officer for Necessary Aid Alliance, the non-governmental organisation in charge of the event, Mr Abudu Osman said that his outfit sought to boost the capacity of women in business to fit into the digital space.
He indicated that social media was viewed as cost effective and efficient means of advertising as it was able to reach a wider audience with very little cost and could receive spontaneous remarks and reactions to their product.
“These days’ people are taking advantage of the digital space to reach a wider market, even those outside their country of residence; that is the kind of advantage we want to give the women in business in the municipality,” he said
He mentioned that the training was part of a project by the NGO with support from Plan Ghana and aimed at building the business skills of people in beneficiary districts of Nadowli-Kaleo, Wa West and Wa East.
For her part, the Head of Gender for the NGO, MsFathiyatNumbo Mohammed said local businesses in Ghana were a source of livelihood for a good number of people and contributed to improving the economy of the country as their operation generated revenue for government.
She stated also that local businesses such as tailoring, hair dressing, fabrication, shea processing, event planning, photography, technological accessories, farming, restaurant services, among others helped in creating jobs for the youth as well as economic growth.
“There is no cause for argument that while most of these businesses are struggling to thrive, scores of opportunities existed for their success especially with the proliferation of technology, businesses have a higher chance to grow and have global impactso we figured out that this is right time to draw the attention of the small and medium-scaled businesses to the many opportunities out there in the global market”, she said.
She mentioned that most female-owned local businesses and startups in the region did not have large market for their products and services due to poor marketing strategies and the over reliance on traditional marketing system.
“This modus operandi by local businesses is having a great toll on their generation and the trickling effect is that it is resulting in stunted growth, inability to onboard more apprentices, poor sales, unattractiveness of skill among several other factors,” she added and said the event was to help meet the technological and marketing gap.
The meeting was also used to launch a digital marketing mobile application christened the “Daah App” to help in business promotion in the region.
FROM LYDIA DARLINGTON FORDJOUR, WA
