Less than 10 months ago, Priscilla Wangui Gakuru was a small-scale trader in Nyahururu in Laikipia County who would whistle to attract buyers.
Reluctantly, because her children would not relent, she joined TikTok and developed a routine where she would whistle and shout her location.
She named herself Priscilla wa Imani as she was known as ‘Wa Imani’, a short form of ‘Nyina wa Imani’ (Mother of Imani), in the common Kenyan way of referring to mothers by associating them with their children.
Soon, she was catching the attention of TikTok users, amongst them Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja, and in February, a wellwisher paid for a vacation in Mombasa to celebrate her 20th wedding anniversary.
It was her first time on a plane.
“It has been a marathon of deal after deal after deal following the February vacation in Mombasa. My biggest breakthrough is that now I am a brand ambassador for Safaricom in the Gomoka na Go Monthly campaign,” says Priscilla wa Imani.
Priscilla’s rise is a testament to TikTok’s star-building power and its multi-generational appeal in Kenya.
The TikToker, who had previously tried her hand at gospel music, delights in the app’s ease of use.
“TikTok is not complicated to use like the other social media apps. On TikTok, I get many views and comments easily. Originally, it was the young who were on TikTok, but now even the old guys are there and doing so well, to the surprise of many,” she said.
With Facebook largely being for family and friends, Instagram mainly used to showcase the best-curated versions of ourselves and Twitter being the public space for the thinking and chattering classes, TikTok has established itself as an app where you show up as you are and where you are.
There are grandmothers creating content on it, youngsters taking each other on dance challenges, influencers selling things, and corporates looking for fun ways to appeal to the public.
Its popularity is not just anecdotal.
Kenya was recently highlighted as a country with the highest TikTok usage globally by a 2023 Reuters Institute report. The proof of the sweet taste of success is in the app’s ability to create content creators with a national presence like Priscilla wa Imani in just a few months.
Vivienne Ethangatta, Safaricom’s Corporate Communication Manager handling the company’s social media platforms, influencers for the telco and its online reputation, believes “the possibilities that TikTok offers are endless.”
“TikTok empowers its creators. There are tools already on the app that will allow you to edit your videos, use filters, they allow you to create music. And so, you get to learn how to create this content. All these has empowered so many people to think of unique and interesting creative ways to create content,” said Vivienne.
There are numbers to back up the sentiments. According to a Reuters Institute report, a whopping 54 per cent of users in Kenya consume TikTok for various reasons, and 29 per cent rely on it exclusively for news consumption.
The report emphasises TikTok’s expanding relevance as a platform for news distribution, particularly among the younger generation who are much more likely to follow celebrities and social media influencers than rely on traditional media outlets when looking for news.
The report also points out that more social media users are seeking light and fun content, which gels with the success of a TikToker like wa Imani, who asserts that, “It is important for people of all ages to keep tabs with technology. TikTok has greatly benefited me. It has thrust me to the spotlight. It helps folks to sell things and also become brands.”
Safaricom, which aims to be a purpose-led technology company by 2025, joined TikTok in 2021 and now boasts about 50,000 followers.
“When it comes to Safaricom being on TikTok, we’ve gotten a platform where we can directly engage with the younger segments, the youth. Many of them I think, first were surprised that we’re on the app in the first place. But they get to relate with us, they talk to us, they share their comments, they watch our videos. So, it’s been a very nice touch point to sort of build that rapport with the youthful segment,” said Vivienne.
Launched by Chinese tech firm ByteDance in 2017, TikTok’s popularity was boosted by the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns in 2020.
The app’s success was attributed to its ability to entice content creators from other apps with its novel features and a wider new audience.
Its option to share videos on to other platforms and its ability to learn a user’s habits and present the content they like have boosted its popularity especially among users between 16 and 24 years.
Even as the app grows in popularity in the country and Kenya emerges as the TikTok capital of the world, monetisation remains difficult for Kenyan content creators as they are not on its TikTok Creator Fund.
This sentiment is backed by Vivienne who pointed out that, “I think it’s important for our government to be able to lobby for the Kenyan creators who are on the app by directly engaging with its (TikTok) creators. There are definitely ways that they can make it better especially when it comes to monetising.”
TikTok caught the eye of Parliament in Kenya mid-August when the National Assembly was asked to ban it on the basis that it causes “the erosion of religious and cultural values.”
This was also because some people stream adult content on the app in the wee hours of the night.
The company scrambled and its CEO, Shou Zi Chew, virtually met President William Ruto on August 24th and gave a pledge to moderate the app’s content in the country and to also set up an office in Kenya to coordinate its operations in Africa.
