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A Year After It Opens First Africa Office, Facebook Recruits Media Agencies To Sell More Ads

A Year After It Opens First Africa Office, Facebook Recruits Media Agencies To Sell More Ads

A year after Facebook opened its first African office in Johannesburg, the U.S. social media advertising machine invited 32 top media agencies from four African countries to learn about digital marketing.

Representatives from media agencies in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa gathered at a three-day summit March 29 to April 1 in Johannesburg, where an international Facebook team attempted to recruit them as agency ambassadors, TV260Nigeria reported.

The training gave participants the resources they need to understand how to drive business results through digital marketing and in turn share this knowledge within their organizations, Facebook said in a press release.

Facebook said it wants its agency partners to have the skills and information they need to make the most of the social network as a marketing and advertising platform. So Facebook is providing extensive training to help individuals become their agency’s expert in Facebook’s tools, technologies and solutions.

The training also gave agency reps a chance to give feedback to Facebook.
The launch of program — dubbed Agency Ambassadors — comes a year after Facebook’s first office opened in Africa. At the launch, Facebook committed to supporting and up-skilling businesses across the continent, TV260Nigeria reported.

“As media transcends to digital, it’s of crucial importance that these ambassadors are equipped to take their learnings back to their agencies – both digital and traditional – so that they can make the most of the digital opportunity, and ultimately grow brands and businesses,” said Nunu Ntshingila, head of Facebook Africa.

The program incorporates Facebook Blueprint, an education program that trains agencies, partners and marketers on how to use Facebook. It combines online courses, in-person training and certification, training marketers on everything from campaign optimization and how to use video on Facebook to effective ad measurement solutions.

The foundation of Blueprint is its eLearning center, which features more than 50 online courses and has tracks organized by category, such as direct response marketing, as well as tracks designed for specific roles, such as digital buying.

“Our goal with the Agency Ambassador Program is to empower agencies to help their clients make the most of our platforms,” said Elizma Nolte, head of business marketing for Facebook Sub-Saharan Africa. “It’s also a way for us to listen to agencies and learn more about what they need in their specific markets, so that we can improve offerings across the Facebook family of services. Facebook is a partnership company at heart, and this kick-off summit is simply the beginning of a long-term partnership with agencies across the continent.”