Nairobi Training
With the mandate to grow the Kenyan blogging community, the Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) held a three-day training workshop on blogging, Social Media, digital marketing and online freedoms courtesy of the United States Embassy in Kenya for university students and graduates within the county of Nairobi.
BAKE seeks to improve the Kenyan economy by reaching out to the youth. The main aim of the training was to increase the number of bloggers and influencers, collectively referred to as online content creators, with knowledge of digital skills. It is evident that stories told by the students for the students are able to reach far greater mass than outsiders who choose to showcase a student or graduate related story.
The participants who took part in the training workshop had various interests on why they joined the training. A majority wanted to become writers and online content creators having an interest in digital communication and marketing. There was the need to better understand how can one earn a living making money online and how digital training is essential for the youth and also the numerous opportunities that the digital sphere offers to young people in Kenya. This interest could enable them to train others on digital skills with the knowledge they hoped to acquire during the training workshop. An interest in BAKE and the roles and benefits they may get was also brought up as most of the students were only aware of the annual BAKE Awards.
After the three-day training sessions, the participants were more vibrant to create blogs and improve the quality of their vlogging and blogging at both a personal and professional level. The training placed emphasis on consistency encouraging the participants to put in more practice in order to make use of the skills learned and influence an audience. The knowledge gained on fake news revealed ways they could be able to detect false news to the masses using the SMART analysis approach where Source, Motive, Authority, Review and Two source test/ timelines are used for verification. The participants were also keen to join BAKE and become social media experts.
Blogging, social media and Digital Marketing are platforms where the opportunities and challenges that face students and even graduates can be showcased and henceforth addressed. The training was able to offer basics on how to start a blog with a practical session which saw participants who did not have blogs create one. This offers a practical case study where the participants can be able to write on their interests with parameters such as technology, health, financing, employment, research, education and/or innovations creating their blog niches.
It is worthy to note that online content creators have an important role to play as part of the wider public in encouraging the spread of knowledge and information, enhancing content creation and sparking discussion. As an online community organisation, we hope to see more content from the youth in the blogging, vlogging and micro-blogging scene. Blogging has become a way to earn a living and training individuals on the basics improves the quality of content not only in the Kenyan online scene but also in the entire globe.
Consecutive workshops held.
Nakuru Training: Enthusiastic and eager to learn digital skills
Mombasa Training: Facebook and Instagram best in reaching friends and family