Experts from TikTok, YouTube and Twitter will be among the speakers to headline the inaugural African Digital Creator Summit (ADCS), set to take place in Johannesburg on 15 September.
The one-day hybrid summit is organised by media and television production company Oviedo Media.
According to a statement, ADCS aims to be an educational platform, to equip and empower content creators and marketers in building a thriving creator economy.
Attendees can network with social media players, including Bernard Kafui, senior partner at Twitter; Zanele Hlatswayo, YouTube lead for Africa; Cikida Gcali, new business lines lead for Uber Eats Africa; and Saul Moross, user operations lead at TikTok Sub-Saharan Africa, among others.
While the global creator economy is worth over $100 billion, a large majority of Africans remain shut out of most of it, according to Forbes.
While many may think of creators as the influencers we see selling their lifestyle, products and tutorials online, beyond that surface is an entire ecosystem made up of creators (independent writers, artists, social media influencers, videographers, gamers, podcasters and more), the brands collaborating with them, and the multiple solutions they’re optimising to turn creation into careers, notes Oviedo Media.
“The summit will present the landscape and size of the creator economy, as well as identify current and future opportunities and how to access them,” comments Naledi Mosieane, MD of Oviedo Media.
“It will help those who’d like to break into the sector and those who are already active, directing them on how to level-up to create sustainable careers and businesses. For marketers, it’ll be an opportunity to delve deeper into developing meaningful relationships with creators, centred on co-creation that is authentic and valuable in meeting new customer expectations.”
While the global creator economy is booming, being an African content creator is hard, according to Mosieane. Some of the challenges facing creators include payment platform issues, a lack of tailored financial products, the economic realities that make monetising African audiences is tricky, and creator solutions being predominantly built for Western economic and cultural contexts.
“While the creator economy is a global phenomenon, as far as we’re concerned, it’s the African continent that stands to profit from it the most. But in order for that to happen, we need to (openly) have critical conversations about this ecosystem.
“Our hope in launching the ADCS is that it’ll be a platform to engage with the next generation of entrepreneurs and the platforms, brands and start-ups enabling them, so we can collectively create the solutions the African creator economy needs to grow exponentially,” Mosieane concludes.
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