#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 Adebayo Mayowa Adejare, popularly known as Ade the Creator online.

Let’s get to know him, shall we?

Can we meet Ade, the social media chief?

I am Adebayo Mayowa Adejare, also known as the Social media chief online. I’m a digital ads expert and accountant.

What was your career journey before specializing in ads and creating websites?

I studied accounting in school and came across digital marketing while I was serving. I finished school at age 24 and had a huge rethink. I said to myself that before I write the ICAN exams and start working with the big brands like KPMG, I would have reached 30 before I start making real money. In fact, if I decide to go the Accountant path as a Bsc. holder, I will start with a ₦40,000 salary. And that wasn’t something I was going to do at all. (laughs). So I decided to use my NYSC time to learn digital marketing, and that was how it started. 

What was your first interaction with ads and why did you decide to explore it as a career?

I enjoy helping people. So when I saw that I could help people make money, it became a perfect match for me. While I was learning digital marketing, my previous boss showed me how he helped a woman run ads for ₦7,000 per week and the woman was making millions from it. 

Now, this was the era when Facebook and Instagram ads weren’t as popular as they are now. At that time, the earlier you got into the game, the better. 

From that incident, I saw that there were a lot of people who were trying to make sales online but didn’t know how to go about it. So I decided I was going to do ads, help people run ads to boost their revenue and make money from it as well.

On the other hand, my major reason for making it (running ads) a career is that I don’t want to suffer, I won’t lie (laughs). 

When I sat down and calculated how if I started as a Bsc holder in accounting, I would have started with a ₦40,000 per month salary. And this was toward the end of Goodluck Jonathan’s presidency. Now, with the situation of the country, I for don suffer (laughs).  

Regardless of that, I have been into tech even before I started digital marketing and web development. When I was in school, I managed my school’s journalist blog and a lot of other things. So I have been into IT, I just didn’t have enough knowledge about what I was doing because I was mostly doing it for fun until I left school and realized that I could earn money from it. 

I am also a product manager and scrum master. But in Nigeria, I focus mostly on digital marketing and web development. 

I have a company – HiDigitals that handles web development, while the social media chief is for ads and social media management.

What’s the importance of running ads on your products as a digital creator?

Every business needs advertisement. The major reason is that you can’t keep selling to the same set of people over and over again. Before we got to digital marketing, we had traditional marketing which is the use of newspapers, radio, and TV, to run ads and market your products. 

One of the major disadvantages of that is, you might be getting the wrong target audience which means if you are advertising baby’s pampers in a sports newspaper, you are not selling to the right set of people. 

If as a product owner or digital owner, you are running ads and it is not converting, it means something is wrong. 

There are also so many reasons why you run ads. Some people run ads for visibility, to convert to sales, or to just run ads – they don’t have a single clue what they are doing. They only want to give Mark Zuckerberg money. 

So to get the most out of your ads, you need to understand the purpose of your ads, identify your target audience, and be willing to spend money. Have a budget for advertising. 

If you are selling a product or a service as a digital creator, add a budget to advertise what you are doing. That is the only way you understand profitability and sales making, and ultimately put more money into your hands.

How did you also get involved with web design?

I got into web development because of my girlfriend. She sells footwear and we noticed that her clients abroad do not really trust buying through Instagram DM unlike in Nigeria here, where you can tell people to send a DM, and they can make a purchase. 

Over there, they believe more in buying from the website and then seeing everything automatically processed. So when I discovered she was losing clients, I decided to venture into web development and design an e-commerce site for her, and the rest is story. So you can say I started building websites out of love.

If you were to convince a brand that’s already making sales of the importance of a website, what would you say?

The truth is, a website itself is part of branding. It is as strong as having a physical shop. It’s like your online office that makes you available all over the world at once. 

This means that anyone in the world can see you and what you are doing which also means that directly or indirectly, your brand is expanding. 

Also, if you do not have a website but you have a large customer base – do you want to have the same customers for the rest of your life? The whole essence of building a company is expansion which leads to growth. 

For those who have just an Instagram account but not a physical shop or a website, you should know that Mark Zuckerberg is the owner of Instagram. Instagram is also a website, a community website. 

If Mark Zuckerberg decides to take it down today, that’s all. All the millions of followers you think you have will be gone. But if you have your own website, you are in charge. Even if Mark Zuckerberg takes down Instagram today, your website still stands, and you are still present online.

What’s your major challenge running ads for clients? 

Nigerian people like cheap things, I said Nigeria because I have handled clients from Germany, Canada, the US, and the UK. Over there, they understand that you need to use money to make money. But here, they feel like you need to put little money to make millions. 

Now, If I come out and give a testimony of clients that made millions via sales, I need you to understand that they put in money to advertise and make things work. It didn’t fall from heaven. 

But Nigerians don’t want to put money to make more money, they just want magic. In order to make more money, you need to have a solid budget for your advertisement and that is it.

How have you managed this challenge?

I stopped running ads for clients in Nigeria and I started teaching it, except you can convince me otherwise. If I teach you and you decide to put ₦200, all the best (laughs).

What advice would you give to other creators who are inspired by you?

As a content creator and digital creator, please do not give up on your craft. You might not get there in the beginning, but if you are lucky you might get there in the first one or two years. 

Try as much as possible to learn from a lot of people, it is going to help you get there faster. Be consistent, and don’t give up. Honestly, don’t. And don’t use another person’s time to measure your own success. That is, don’t judge yourself by another person’s movement or life. 

This is the internet, a lot of people fake it till they make it, except a few people that say the truth. You are doing great, but you have to keep pushing yourself to do better. But then again, thank you for being inspired by me.

---

Now more than ever, you can change your career path and build a sustainable income. Turn your knowledge into income by creating and selling digital products today. It’s as easy as it sounds.