While Twitter Nigeria was still enjoying the euphoria of the visit of Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, to the country, an event of deeper significance took place and shook the social media world. In its first major event since it got a new Minister, the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development hosted over a thousand youth to the 2019 edition of the Africa Youth Day at the Edmunds Multipurpose Event Center, Abuja, and it was a social media success with the official hashtag trending for hours during the event and well over 2,000,000 impressions on Twitter.
According to a report generated using the popular social media tool, TweetReach, the event was gathered that over 750,000 accounts were potentially reached with the hashtag #AYMNG2019. This was achieved without any advertisement nor promotions.
According to the organisers, it was genuinely surprised that the event received so much positive response despite almost zero spendings on promotions.
“We simply relied on a proper social media strategy and the goodwill of young Twitter influencers,” said Kemi Areola, Special Assistant to the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr. Sunday Dare. “We had no funding for social media, so the Minister charged us to get creative. So, we made sure all the images we sent out before the event were well designed and sharable, and also reached out to our friends online. We got the support of the alumni of some of our partners and the corps members that attended as well. Throughout the event, we made sure we reminded everyone to tweet using the hashtag. It also helped that event was very engaging, educative and productive.”
November has been designated by the Africa Union as the Africa Youth Month. The Ministry chose 12th November to celebrate young Nigerians and Mr. Dare launched a strategic plan to train 200,000 youth via DEEL which stands for Digital skills, Entrepreneurship, Employment and Leadership training.
The event was attended by a plethora of Ministers, youth organisations and the diplomatic corps. Football icon, Daniel ‘The Bull’ Amokachi, and Olympic gold medalist, Chioma Ajunwa, were also in attendance. Popular artiste, Faze, performed to the delight of all.
