Linda Ikeji Social: an Incomplete Product With Achievable Ambitions

The launch of Linda Ikeji’s really own social networking site – Linda Ikeji Social – almost broke the Nigerian web on Tuesday.

Bearing an astonishing resemblance to Facebook, Linda Ikeji Social (LIS) permits users to develop a profile, post pictures, include and look for good friends, as well as share what’s on their mind.

The long term strategy for LIS, expecting the execution is flawless, will be to competing Facebook in Nigeria. Obviously it is a herculean job, however it is not likely anybody will bet against Linda Ikeji Social (LIS) pulling it off all the very same.

Even tech ‘heads’ who (ostensibly) understand much better are afraid to prophesy doom for Linda Ikeji Social.

– ִ (@xylemic) November 1, 2016

LIS is using rewards consisting of shared ad earnings and $3 rewards per initial user-sourced news to catalyse engagement.

According to Linda Ikeji:

“There’s a lot of money from marketing on social media, a lot of brand names put cash on popular online platforms and we wish to share a few of the cash we make on this platform with our users,”

The method seems extremely reliable. Barely 2 days after it first released, the platform already claims over 50,000 users and counting.

Almost 50k users on LIS in 24hrs. ! Thanks guys! If you haven’t registered, please join us on https://t.co/7vKviiDjzG

– Linda Ikeji Blog (@lindaikeji) November 2, 2016

And from all indicators, the majority of these users are not simply small, they’re rather active.

Why Linda Ikeji Social might pull through

In all this, Linda Ikeji is not resting on her oars. She has currently started installing enormous signboard projects to create interest and awareness around LIS.

Besides, if there’s one thing we’ve learnt from the entire story of Linda Ikeji, it’s not to ignore her audience. With an audience that is mainly driven by selfless love for the well known blog writer, Linda appears to have acquired a set of patriot to her course. While Linda Ikeji’s Blog (LIB) has actually thrived for nearly a years for this factor, the shared profits technique will only serve to add brand-new sets of loyalist to this very same course.

However, running a social networking platform needs heavy financial investment in tech. This involves putting together a group of world class engineers to monitor the platform daily. The website went offline briefly, hardly 2 hours after in released on Tuesday. Following that was an extended period of over 12 hours where early adopters were unable to activate or login to their accounts. These are indications of how things could fail if the tech side isn’t accorded due value.

No doubt, LIS is still far from a completed product. The site still needs a lot of improvement in the area of use and engagement.

For instance, Facebook algorithms are so powerful that they can dictate the tone of one’s feed; either by making sure that the feeds consist of just the things particular to the user or by producing distinct features that keep such user completely engaged. This is presently doing not have in LIS. But then once again, Linda Ikeji’s financially incentivised approach to user engagement may well prove efficient in the long run.

I keep informing these “intellectual” to study the Linda Effect as a part of modern social anthropology. https://t.co/q3xJzW5NDU

– Funmi Iyanda (@Funmilola) November 1, 2016

The media company twist

Indeed, LIS does take the mould of a social networking site. However, its true nature still stays elusive. While the failure to predict the real form of LIS is a bit worrying, it likewise what makes it special maybe.

In August, Linda Ikeji announced she would be expanding her service to consist of other types of media like online TV network, an online radio station, a music site, and something else she called “LIS.” Nevertheless, the gesture was applauded. But really, everyone was clueless about how this was going to occur.

But somehow, LIS mentions Linda’s lofty intent and how she was going to bring them to fulfillment. Still at its early days, it remains to be seen what LIS will evolve into, however there’s every possibility that it will be a moms and dad platform to Linda Ikeji’s growing army of subsidiary business; enabling her to integrate all of these functions in one single platform.

Being that the case, the possible stream of untapped wealth this will open up for Linda Ikeji is truly scary. In all of this, one wonders if LIB could well end up as her least engaging platform.

While Linda Ikeji stated explicitly her objective to handle Facebook in Nigeria, the practicality of that remains to be seen. For all we understand, Facebook hosts a meagre 18 countless Nigeria’s 97 million strong web population. There simply might be enough space for both of them.