By Winnie Gor
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jan 12 – Women are continuing to break the business ownership ceiling that has been a preserve of men for many years.
Many women now own organizations in manufacturing, technology, education and training institutions raising the bar higher and even doing better than men.
The 2014 Globally Spotted report predicted that by 2022, there would be 200 million women-led businesses worldwide and another 1 billion entering the economy within the review period.
It is even more exciting in Africa, where A 2018 report by the World Bank, shows that the continent has more new female entrepreneurs than male.
The MasterCard Index of Women Entrepreneurs 2017 report listed Uganda (34.8 per cent) and Botswana (34.6 per cent) being the countries with the highest percentage of women entrepreneurs globally and making inroads in traditionally male-dominated environments.
This uptick in women entrepreneurs, especially those operating small and medium enterprises require a lot of support, especially from the media to excel and exceed the resilience and tenacity they have shown in the face of many challenges.
These challenges include the Covid-19 pandemic economic shocks where many businesses were disrupted and skewed boardroom decisions which tend to slow processes that reward female-led initiatives.
Media can also act as an inspirational tool to other women and also help break the myth that profiles entrepreneurship as a gender, rather than an economic issue.
The case for media visibility comes amid statistics by a 2015 Global Monitoring Media Project report, which found that women only make up 24 per cent of the persons either heard, read about or seen in newspapers, television and radio news.
Neither have the women entrepreneurs made significant inroads in the social media spaces, where research firm Globally Spotted, indicates that an insignificant 26 per cent of Internet news and media tweets combined, focus on women.
This is dire. Considering that in the last decade, more focus has shifted to online media platforms where primary audiences are now spending more time. It makes a perfect marketing sense for the women ventures to go to the marketers, instead of hoping they will come to them as was the case previously.
This situation is exerting more pressure on women entrepreneurs to claim their space in both traditional and new media spaces.
According to Nicolas Pompigne-Mognard, the Group Founder and Chairman of Apo Group, all nascent business ideas need journalists to support them; that a positive mention in the media can mean the difference between success and failure for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Just like there has been a concerted drive to financially empower women-led enterprises, similar efforts need to be geared towards raising the visibility of women businesses through the media, with several schools of thought being considered to close this media visibility gap.
In the first instance, there is a need to materialize changes at senior levels across media houses, now that there is an increased number of women in leadership positions in news rooms across the world. Naturally, such a move will lead to more women enterprise stories being published.
The second seeks to harness the power of peer-2-peer recommendations and social amplifications through the various social media platforms including Facebook, twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
This theory borrows from the Globally Spotted research, which indicated that an estimated 30 billion pieces of content and 500 million tweets are shared and generated respectively every month.
This is in additional to 92 per cent of consumers trust peer recommendations over all forms of advertising, while 450 million others promote their professional network through LinkedIn.
These statistics are not just big numbers. They speak to the power and influence of collective social net worth that will enable female-led enterprises utilize media visibility to access a wider network of supporters beyond just family and friends and help them reach broader audiences, which will ultimately provide them with increased exposure.
The writer is the Chief Executive Officer, Winnie Gor Communications Consultancy
