Facebook Launches Agency Ambassador Programme for African Media Agencies

Facebook has launched an Agency Ambassador Programme for Africa as part of its drive to equip its agency partners with the skills and information they need to make the most of Facebook as a marketing and advertising platform. Agency Ambassadors have a direct line to Facebook and receive extensive training to help them become their agency’s expert in Facebook’s tools, technologies and solutions.

Its obvious, Facebook is showing major commitment in Africa, Delegates representing 32 top media agencies from four countries (Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and South Africa) gathered at a three-day summit in Johannesburg from March 29th to April 1st, where a Facebook team from around the world trained them to become Africa’s first Facebook Agency Ambassadors. The collaborative training equipped participants with the resources they need to understand how to drive real business results through digital marketing, and in turn share this knowledge within their organizations. The forum also afforded an opportunity for the agency representatives to provide feedback to Facebook.

"We’re so excited to launch the Facebook Agency Ambassador Program, a first for Africa,” says Nunu Ntshingila, Head of Africa for Facebook. “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."

Facebook's Africa Head, Nunu Ntshingila.

The programme incorporates Facebook Blueprint, an education program that trains agencies, partners and marketers on how to use Facebook. Combining online courses, in-person training and certification, Blueprint trains 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.

Looking at the African countries mentioned above, you will agree with me that Facebook’s Vice President for Europe, the Middle East and Africa Nicole Mendelsohn was not wrong when he said "Africa is one of the places where Facebook’s next billion users are coming from." Nigeria alone scored a very high number of users, when the California-based social networking giant, earlier this year announced that 16 million Nigerians visit Facebook every month and that 100% of these people do using their mobile phones.

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