Over the past month, our snoops and investigators have invested time and other resources to investigate who of the social media users in our dusty country tend to come out as top notch social media influencers on Jack Dorsey’s App – Twitter.
In times when everyone who clocks 1k followers among Ugandans On Twitter (UOT) starts calling him/herself an influencer and digital marketer, brand owners have continuously lost out on carefully crafted content creators, a situation currently attributed to drama architects and violence engineers who tag themselves as influencers just because they updated their bio and pinned a tweet with 100 retweets.
Well, let’s not disappoint you because you might be among them. The net which the team at The Ugandan Wire threw into a pool of UOT ‘influencers’ managed to sieve out among them the TOP 10 that probably know what they are doing irrespective of the brands they manage.
Muhumuza is a top business journalist in Uganda and, if our research paid off, is currently working with the British High Commission. He is a fine journalist who has ‘up-grown’ his prowess over time to become one of the region’s most sought-after business reporters.
With his corporate jokes, you will rarely find Keith in unsolicited drama, hoping from one cheap brand to another just to bag a kilogram of woggos. His articulate way of explaining about brands from a financial and informed point of view has continued to keep him as one of top influencers on Twitter.
2. Beewol
This bald-headed man is unique in his own way. On Saturday night, you will find him with friends in bar watching soccer, boozing as if there is no tomorrow and then on a Sunday morning, find him in church singing Halleluyah. He is a guy of all seasons. He perfectly knows how to juggle business and enjoyments.
The radio presenter turned digital marketer has continued to prove that he is a pro in the business and others are amateurs. He has a Creative Outlook to life, a gift that distinguishes him from the myriad self proclaimed influencers.
Currently the head of digital at SC Villa, Beewol has also worked with top brands in Uganda like DSTV because of brand loyalty and the kind of creativity he uses whenever he is influencing.
Mathias Ssemanda is a digital guru who is currently the head of digital at Uganda’s oldest University, Makerere University. He is also, according to some Ugandans, the Twitter ambassador in Uganda because of the way he has managed to secure verification for Ugandan individuals and organisations, rather effortlessly.
Ssemanda’s digital prowess grew when he was at Africell Uganda as the digital manager and has continued to help brands get amazing online presence. His brand awareness and innovation in digital has made him build trust among people whom he offers his services.
4. Geno Eric
As you wished, he couldn’t miss out on this list. Geno Eric has been doing this business for quite some time irrespective of that dark moment in his life when his presence was slightly lowered after getting dumped by his online bonkmate. He is one of the few influencers who have managed to grow followers organically without any follow trains and retweet groups.
Because he has been in the business for some time, he beats his fellow influencers with experience, and knowing to excite followers through jokes, clap backs and trolls.
Recently, he has been big on Football content. Our guess is that he is either targetting the wide football fanbase for following or he wants to replace someone at KCCA FC.
5. Lynda Ddane
The gorgeous, flabby-thighed TV and radio presenter at NTV and KFM respectively has exponentially built her following from the fact that everyday, she issues out a dose of her sumptuous shoots to twitter thigh mongers causing stampedes on the app. It’s by such actions that she is able to influence every whooper weilding man on the app to engage with brands she is always pushing.
Observers in the market say she also cherishes brand loyalty. That she will stick with your brand until you are tired of customers. She will talk about it in the morning, evening and night, accompanying her brand posts with her teasing self to get you attracted.
MBU sometime last month, she turned down an NBS TV gig. Mbu!
Arthur, like Mathias Ssemanda could be one of the most experienced digital executives on twitter at the moment. He is also a digital media strategist at Uganda Media Center, pulling all influencer programs from government entities.
Through his massive following, he could be the reason when government organizations have started taking social media influencing very seriously. Arthur has had to stick to government programs amid abuses, trolls and physical violence threats from “boys in the struggle.”
Not long ago, Twitter sought to clear any traces of him on the platform and suspended (permanently) every account he sought to crop up with, until he stabilized. In a space of less than two years, he has curated awesome content to grow his account from zero to more than 30,000 followers.
You are old Twitter and joined the app in 2009, you claim to be big on content but haven’t even clocked 500 followers. Toyina kyotugamba!
The Lil Stunner may be struggling with content, spellings and grammar but she has got a lot of clout and energy around her – something that keeps social media users glued to topics she initiates and drama that she is involved in.
She has made lots of users overnight celebrities; from iPhone Sales entrepreneur Stanley Ssempijja all the way down to God’s Plan whom she has just recently made a household name online.
Perhaps, she is also giving social media and influencing too much attention and resources lately since she said NO to 50K payments that she accused the country’s biggest broadcasters NTV of in a twitter revelation last year.
The reason he was probably made to apologize with a yellow shirt in front of an army tanker after attacking a highly connected bummy chic on twitter could be because of his influence and the drift he would cause on internet during the elections period.
Faisal unlike other self proclaimed influencers, knows how to juggle “vayolence” and business at the same time. On Sunday evening, he will ingnite a twar and on a Monday morning, you will find him in office at Protea pushing successful campaigns.
Like Arthur Musinguzi, Pyepar grew an audience through telling jokes and trolling other users. He was big as early as 2015 with tens of thousands of followers until Twitter asked him to calm down. What you see now is the fruit of not giving up and picking himself up to continue providing stellar content.
The Usual Suspect, as you may know him, is perhaps one of the biggest influencers on the platform at the moment. Mugabi, a diplomat in all senses of the word is the jolly big wig that easily connects with followers.
He was recently all over the platform after he clocked 1M tweets. Yes, one fuckin million tweets. You cannot reach that if you are worried about things like “my timeline will be littered” or “I can’t retweet content from new Twitter.”
Even if you have joined Twitter a minute ago, if your first tweet is fire and worthy of engagement, trust Jude to give it audience once he encounters it. He is a co-founder at Fast Lane, a digital agency that won Airtel Uganda’s Most Internet Driven Hustle.
Among the top influencers we have listed, John laban is the youngest in the business and currently one of the fastest growing influencers on Twitter. However much he is trashed for literally begging for attention on the app, the youngin has attracted a lot of clout around his account and we don’t know how.
Our guess is that he is recruiting high school kids to Twitter and they forever look up to him, because honestly, he is not that unique. Someone recently abused Geno Eric’s craft by calling Laban “the new Geno Eric” and our reaction was “oh please, come on man!”
Laban and Geno are nothing a like, the latter has carefully crafted content. The former is like Sheila Gashumba, they just have the clout.
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