Social Media Evolution, Impact, and Top Online Influencers in Kenya

Human’s impulse to communicate, stay in touch with the world, and the advances in technology, have had a profound effect on the evolution of social media. And in a little more than a decade, its impact has gone from being an entertaining extra to a fully integrated part of nearly every aspect of daily life for many.

Social media has grown beyond establishing and nurturing personal connections at scale. What began as a desktop/laptop experience has significantly shifted to mobile devices and tablets as cellular services and phone proliferation expanded.

Smartphone penetration, high-speed internet, and enabling tech, have become more readily available in homes, businesses, and public spaces. Incidentally, with the advent of social media apps that run on smartphones, end users have taken their communities with them wherever they went.

Amidst the craze, businesses took advantage of this new consumer mobility by serving their customers new, simpler methods of interacting — and new ways of buying goods and services.

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Social Media Impact on Businesses

The most notable impact of social media has been on marketing. It has been regarded as an instrumental strategy in bridging the gap between business and consumer, creating channels of communication, and helping businesses build lasting relationships with audiences.

Many companies now rely heavily on social media to shape their brand image, as consumer feedback is almost instantaneous. Due to the increased accessibility of people and resources within companies, it has also had an impact on recruitment practices, educational programs, and personal development opportunities within companies – all these have been expedited by the surge in online activity.

According to Hootsuite’s 2021 Digital Report, the number of internet users across the globe stood at 4.80 billion people by July 2021 – that’s almost 61 percent of the world’s total population. The number is still growing and in the past 12 months alone, 257 million new users came online.

Interestingly, internet users are currently growing at an annual rate of 5.7 percent, equating to an average of more than 700,000 new users each day.

The global social media users by July 2021 had reached 4.48 billion, equal almost 57 percent of all the people on Earth. The number of social media users has increased by 13.1 percent over the past 12 months.

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The report further states that 520 million new users joined social media between July 2020 and July 2021, equating to growth of more than 1.4 million new users every day.

This increase in online connectivity has given businesses new ways to reach customers through content development and promotion. Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook