Like many other players, social networks are now focusing heavily on Africa for their development, attracted by its young population, strong demographic growth, and high mobile penetration rate. In the race, global leaders such as META and TikTok intend to accelerate their expansion on the continent and win the hearts of local populations.
With this in mind, Meta today announced the launch of its WhatsApp Business Coach training tool in French-speaking Africa. This new secure tool has been designed to give small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) leaders in the sub-region access to training to develop their online businesses. All via WhatsApp.
Access and the cost of connectivity reduce training opportunities for African entrepreneurs. With WhatsApp Business Coach, we want to overcome these challenges with a learning solution that is adapted to local realities and easily accessible to as many people as possible," says Fargani Tambeayuk, Director of Public Policy for French-speaking Africa at Meta.
Since 2021, Facebook, now META, has implemented a number of key investments and initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa, notably by committing to developing innovation and supporting business growth. META has supported the training of more than 80,000 SMEs in 13 countries through economic impact programs. Since 2017, Meta has also been training entrepreneurs through its Meta Boost program, which includes free online courses focused on digital marketing.
From a technical standpoint, WhatsApp Business Coach allows its users to learn through a free, low-data educational chatbot.
It should be noted that according to figures published by Africascope for 2021, WhatsApp was dominant in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa. In almost all the countries studied, WhatsApp was the most widely used social network on a daily basis.