The much popular social networking site Facebook is building a team of young executives to win digital advertising dollars from small and medium sized businesses across Africa’s major markets. Since 2015, when it opened its first African office in Johannesburg, the social media site has been quiet about opening offices in other key markets of Africa such as Nigeria or Kenya that would help deepen its marketing and advertising focus amongst local businesses.
Nevertheless, it is extending its physical reach by hiring international growth managers in Nairobi and Lagos. They will continue the push for Facebook’s wider adoption which has remained relatively low compared to other continents. Africa, with an estimated population of 1.2 billion people, remains particularly an attractive location to the social networking sites though the penetration is still quite low with only 80 million active users on a monthly basis in sub-Saharan Africa.