Mark has spent the past five years offering insights on social media ‘discourse’ trends via periodical reports that his firm produces. The reports, mainly built from public data available online, helps inform business strategies for local and global companies that run online sales promotions for their products. Nendo has established an in-house monitoring team that churns out information on
different segments of society based on gender, age and social classes upon request by various clients, at a fee.
“You cannot win by sending out promotional messages blindly across the social media platforms as you need to know who your clients are and which platforms they patronise most,” he says. Nendo is currently active in 12 African markets and recently got a new contract from a multinational to ‘social’ listen across West African markets.“ My most cherished asset is the intellectual property data we generate. Our work is relied upon by researchers, job-seekers and companies,” he says.
The company is planning to sell a stake to raise funds for regional expansion within the next five years. The firm that now has seven full-time employees and five part-time consultants started off as an incubatee company at iHub’s premises within Strathmore University where Mark studied business and information technology. Nendo’s first Social Media Trend Report released in 2014 monitored online social habits among Nairobi’s tech-savvy community and predicted 2015’s social habits that hinted at Twitter and WhatsApp taking Kenyans by storm.
“My interest was to draw attention towards growing centrality of mobile phones, the internet and social media on Kenyans’ lives. From our Nairobi office, we have been able to monitor social media use across Africa and generate reports that inform business decisions for corporate executives,” he says. The firm is currently working on a product that addresses addiction to social media as a mental health issue.
-James Kariuki
