#CreatorStories showcases the honest personal experiences of digital creators who monetize their knowledge of a skill and sell it on Selar. We share these stories every week to inspire you to create and sell a product out of your wealth of knowledge and be a part of the digital creator economy.

This week, we turn the lights on Omobolaji Ajibare popularly known as the Social Media Oga, who after a series of futile job searches, decided to forgo job hunting and build a business around social media. 

She started growing her social media pages, making mistakes, and learning along the way. Today, she has created multiple digital products from which she earns six figures. 

Everyone would like to get to know Bolaji, the Social Media Oga.

Can we meet Omobolaji Ajibare, the Social Media Oga?

I don’t like these questions. Anytime I’m asked to introduce myself, I’m like, “where do I start from?”(lol). My name is Bolaji Ajibare. A lot of people know me as Bolaji billion, social media oga, or Bolaji.

Bolaji is someone that decided to take social media seriously and it turned into her career and something that she’s passionate about. I currently run a community of social media managers with almost 4000 members. I’m someone that likes playing around and always learns.

I currently head the media team for the pastor’s seed family RCCG worldwide. It’s a team of 40 members now. We are in charge of whatever goes out on the pastor’s seeds family page. Basically, we brainstorm content from beginning to end. I love fashion.

I love dressing up a lot. I take pictures for a living and I create content for a living. Bolaji is somebody that loves God also. That’s why Bolaji billions is all about the Christian creative. I’m just a small girl with a very very big God.

What was your career journey like before becoming a social media management expert?

Okay, so I would say that before I became an expert, I was a novice. I worked with one brand, and one company as a 9-5. I hated it and after my six months probation period, I was fired. So I was out searching and I couldn’t get another job. I worked with someone else for three months and then COVID happened.

So I started taking courses and learning because I had already started social media management since I was in University but I did not take it seriously as a full-blown career. So I only worked one job and I did my internship with a bank but it was what I studied in school, Computer Science. 

When COVID happened, I was 24 then, and I asked myself “what am I going to do in my life? I can’t be collecting allowance from my father. And then, my friends were the ones subscribing for me. Shout out to my friends. Having good friends is a huge plus. My friends were always taking turns to subscribe for me. The good thing is that many of them are abroad right now and left only me here in Nigeria(laughs). If Biodun subscribes today, Lateef will subscribe tomorrow, and that’s what I was using. My dad was also coming through for me and then I saved up. 

I did a video that went viral on Twitter. I had about 35k followers on Twitter before they brought down my account. I don’t know what happened. And when I did that video, I was approached by a school to record, but then I already started my page and was learning from the digital thinker who taught about how to use apps and other digital stuff. I found one and I was inspired to create a community where social media managers can learn. So I started and I can say I’m the first person in Nigeria to actually start that thing because it was after I started that a lot of people started. I’d say it proudly because I am the pioneer (lol). 

Basically, I just started taking social media seriously. I’m still taking it seriously today. I made one investment in dollars and I was feeling overwhelmed about it, I just closed my laptop. I’ll come back to it later because it still scares me. I’m still in the process of figuring it out. But yeah, that’s my career.  I only worked one job and then I became a freelancer. And the thing is, there’s no blueprint to how to do it right. So I’m just moving and making mistakes along the way and learning how to do it. That’s my career journey. 

What made you decide to create a brand/business around social media management and teach more people about it? 

There was no point. It never occurred to me that, okay, you can actually build a brand out of this. Even now, I’m thinking of transitioning. There’s nobody that wakes up in the morning and decides to be an entrepreneur (lol). I want to have a job where I have a closing time and I can take some time out to leave and not bother about work.

I think it was during the COVID time that I thought of just doing social media while I was still looking for a job. When I started showing up as Social Media Oga, I was still looking for a job. At some point, I dumped the job search and decided to build my business. So there was no point it occurred to me (lol).

What was your first digital product?

My first digital product was slides that I used to teach during a PSF training. I turned it into a PDF on Canva and that was something I gave out for free. Over 3000 people have access to it now. That was my very first digital product and I’m still creating more. I have like three others that I’m still working on.

When did you earn your first money (commission) from creating and selling digital products?

I did a class for 3k. Because I discovered that I could grow my Instagram stories so I did a class and five people believed in me so much that they paid me 3k. Out of these 5 people, one of them became my very good friend. At that time, I think I had about 2000 followers and I made 15k. It was surreal. 

Want to sell digital products in Nigeria? Follow this guide to know How to Easily Create and Sell Digital Products Online

What’s the average amount you make from digital products now? 

For the ones I can track, I think I’ve made over 6 million. I’m not somebody that tracks expenses. I hate numbers. I’m looking forward to getting an accountant that can help me track my numbers (lol).

What is your sales/marketing strategy that other digital creators can employ?

You know when people tell you that they have funnels? It doesn’t work for me ohh. The thing is these funnels work for them but it doesn’t work for me. Your audience is different from theirs. That’s why when I talk to my email list, I don’t follow the scripts that someone else wrote for me. Because I know what attracted my audience to me in the first place.

If you must use someone else’s blueprint or copy, add your own to it. Personally, before I say anything, I put it on my Instagram stories to let my audience know what I’ve been working on. For the social media rockstar toolkit ticket, for example, I sold over 150 tickets that I can track and I haven’t run a single ad on it. People are willing to drop their money. In the first month, I made over 1 million.

The thing is, you learn from everyone. Instead of using another person’s strategy, try to use yours. Discover your own strategy. For somebody like me, I will prep them from my story and that’s one of the reasons I’m actively building my community on Telegram. When you want to sell something, you have people that will buy from you. Let them know your launch date, and give them a launch price and details about the benefits they will get from whatever they are paying for. That’s what I do.

Would you say you leveraged the power of community to sell your ideas and start your academy?

Yes, I’m all about community. With a community, you have people ready and willing to buy any of your products.

Tell us about Social Media Haven?

Social Media Haven is a Telegram group we’re trying to bring to Instagram. It is where social media managers can come and rant, get advice, resources, and help. We even have a channel where we post jobs for people.

We also have paid training and free training that helps the community members. I can leverage my relationships with various top influencers like Salem, Blessing Abeng, and have them come to teach the Haven community.

I realized that not everyone can pay to be in my academy and that’s fine. But if the paid training is about 2k or $5, you can’t tell me you can’t afford that. Some of the benefits they’ve also received is a discounted price for my products. If I sell something at 10k for others, people in the Haven community get to pay half the price or 80% of it.

They get first access to any of my launch products and first dibs on anything I can find on the internet. So Haven is a community for social media managers. We have about 3800+ members and hope to reach 4000 members before the end of this month by God’s grace. 

How did you get the idea to start the Social Media Oga academy and the Social Media Haven?

Honestly, I’m bored of teaching social media management on my page. So I’m bringing in a lot of changes. I’ve grown into this person that’s becoming busier every day. I want to be able to save time so I need to find the quickest way possible.

I need to develop systems. I can’t serve just social media managers alone. I don’t want to serve just social media managers, I want to serve everybody. There’s a reason I’m called Social Media Oga and not Social Media Manager Oga. Right now, my content is geared toward teaching people how to use social media correctly. I’m teaching more of Inshot, Canva, and Capcut because I noticed Video is the thing and I’m trying to look for ways to make it easier for you. 

The truth is most of these things that I’m sharing are also on YouTube. It’s free. I know some people charge for it but I share it for free. My job is to help you use social media the right way. So that doesn’t mean I won’t be teaching about that, I would, but I wanted the Haven to focus majorly on Social Media Managers, their well-being, and tools that they can use.

I can’t be posting about social media managers on my page alone. It’d make clients think I’m not open to business or doing other stuff. I don’t want to be very niched. I want to be able to serve everybody. I am the social media oga. So if you have any social media needs on every single social media platform, you should be able to come and meet me, and that’s what I want to do. That’s how I’m doing it.

What are your challenges being a social media management expert and digital creator?

Firstly is payment. I don’t want to be paid in Naira, It’s not benefiting me. I want to be paid in dollars and I don’t want to have to register my business abroad and be paying taxes when I’m not even there. I’m in Nigeria, make the payment flawless for us. 

Secondly, Nigerians don’t know how to give reviews. I had to do a reverse psychology thing where before I gave some people access to the upgrade of a product they’ve used, I made sure they sent a review. So if you don’t send me a review, you don’t get access to the upgrade. 

I’m always trying to work. I work hard. My boyfriend complains a lot, my friends complain a lot. Two of the people I call my best friends woke up one morning and created a WhatsApp group. They added my boyfriend, and the title of the group is “Bolaji Must Rest.” And it’s like I must report when I started working and when I stopped working. I’m always trying to do better every time. I’m always challenging myself. So that might be an issue for me as a social media oga. 

Next is that everybody wants to work with me, but people don’t want to work hard. People want to start working with me and they want to start earning a salary immediately but these people are not as good as I think they are. When you start working with these people, you discover that they are not good. I put people on probation for one month. In fact, I understand why companies put people on probation for six months. Because mehn! It’s a lot. So manpower is also an issue. I’ve been able to get an assistant who works just like me. When she responds to my DM’s you’d think it’s me. I asked her to introduce herself when talking with clients so they know it’s my assistant talking. 

Also, I’ve not found a mentor in Nigeria. I don’t have a mentor in social media management. The one I have, she’s abroad.

But I need to come to that reality maybe until I move there then we can do the whole mentorship thing. But while I’m still here, she can just be my mentor from afar. Because there is no way whatever she’s teaching me would apply to my audience. Our money is strange and the cost of living here is very low. So yeah, those are my challenges.

Aside from teaching people everything about social media management, what else do you do?

I read a lot of books right now. I’ve read 41 digital books and about 5 physical books this year. And most of these digital books are nothing less than 500 pages. That’s why content ideas come easy to me. I like dressing up and taking pictures. I like food more than humans. Okay. I love my boyfriend more than food but I like food more than him (laughs). In the long run, I want to have my merch line for creatives so that you can declare your creative life boldly. It’s something I’m looking at, but yeah, that’s what I do.

What advice would you give to digital creators in Africa that can help them boost their sales?

Firstly, be calming down!!!! Calm down. Sleep if you have to sleep. You don’t have to have everything figured out. Right now, when I feel overwhelmed, I just close my laptop. I’d figure it out later. Anyday I feel inspired and ready to plan my content, I do that at a stretch. The thing is when you cannot figure something out, BREATHE! and then go and sleep. 

Invest in yourself. You have to be accountable to yourself and somebody else too. Stop looking for cheap products. If you want anything cheap you can’t find it on my page, don’t bother about it. Because I’m not going to give you anything for free. That’s how I am. 

If you’re either a Christian or a Muslim or there is a particular God you believe in, go to your God for help. Make sure you’re in the right standing with God.

Next, make sure you have tools and strategies in place. Purchase premium products. You can buy it together with people. All these apps have made it possible for you to have people on your team. So you can buy it together with other people, it will work well for you. That’s what I’m doing. With somebody, you can cut your expenses. It’s always very good to do that.

Talk to people. Stop hoarding knowledge. A lot of Africans, especially Nigerians, always want to keep things to ourselves. You need to start talking to people. Everything I share is also on YouTube. I learn on YouTube, practice it, and come back to Instagram to share it with you guys. There’s nothing new on Google. So, don’t hoard knowledge.

Is there any other thing you’d like to say to your audience? 

Your dreams are valid, no matter how small. The dreams I have for the social media haven are even bigger than my page. I want to be known as the founder of the biggest social media management community in the world,  Forbes CEO under 30 (laughs). Yeah, that’s what I want and it’s very valid. So believe your dreams are valid and pursue them. 

---

Tired of job hunting? Start your online business by creating your first digital product and selling it on Selar today!

We have tools and features to help you make massive sales from digital products. Here’s how to get started.

• Sign up on Selar.
• Set up your online store and bank details.
• Upload your product.
• Share store link with customers and start selling.

Make more money as you wait for your 9-5 job😉.