SelarContentMarketing

Selar is Africa's number one e-commerce platform servicing the creator economy. When I joined in August 2022, I started out managing Selar's Twitter and LinkedIn accounts.

The immediate job was straightforward: create content, grow the audience and keep the brand in conversation with creators.

But there was a bigger opportunity. Selar had a strong product, but much of its communication was understandably focused on selling the product. I wanted to make the brand feel more like a participant in the creator economy — a company that understood what creators were talking about, cared about what they were building, and could offer them useful, relatable information.

I started with social media. Then I moved into content marketing, where I learned SEO and began building content designed not only to entertain and engage, but to capture search demand and drive people towards the product.

When I joined Selar, I was responsible for Twitter and LinkedIn. Twitter was particularly important because it was where a large part of Nigeria's creator and tech ecosystem was already having conversations.

I didn't want Selar to sound like a company broadcasting announcements. I wanted it to sound like someone you actually wanted to follow.

That meant experimenting with Nigerian internet culture, humour, commentary, storytelling and conversational writing — while still finding ways to educate people about the product. The basic principle was simple: if creators were already talking about something, Selar should be able to participate in that conversation.

Within roughly six months, the Twitter audience grew from 5,000 to 10,000 followers. The account had been in existence since 2016.

After about a year in social, I moved into Selar's content team. The transition changed the way I thought about content. I was now writing technical and educational articles for the blog, with a target of roughly five articles a month.

I had to learn SEO quickly. I learned how to use search data to answer questions like:

• What do creators need help with?
• How can Selar answer their questions?

My work covered keyword research, search intent, content briefs, competitor analysis, on-page optimisation, internal linking and backlinks. I was responsible for the process from research through to writing, optimisation, publishing and distribution, with editorial review from my manager. We tracked performance using Semrush, Ahrefs, Google Analytics and Google Search Console.

In my first year learning SEO, more than 30 articles ranked on Google's first page. It was my first real proof that content could work as an acquisition channel, not just a publishing function.

SEO answered the question: what are people searching for? But I was also interested in how we could shape the thinking of our audience.

That idea led to the creation of Learn with Selar. I took things people already paid attention to — brands, pop culture, internet phenomena, campaigns and creators — drew insights from them, and presented them back to an audience made up largely of people building businesses online.

I created the name, concept, format and editorial direction, and handled the research, writing, design and distribution.

Instead of telling creators how to market themselves, they could look at something already happening in culture and find lessons from it. It gave Selar a way to participate in culture rather than simply advertise within it.

The best way to make a brand feel human is to let its users speak.

In 2023, I contributed significantly to the Creator Stories video series, a YouTube series produced in partnership with Rise, one of Africa's top investment platforms. My work included creator sourcing, outreach, ideation, interviews and distribution.

Creator Stories gave potential users something product marketing alone couldn't: proof. Instead of telling creators what they could achieve, we could show them the people already doing it.

During the first season, we interviewed top voices in the creator space including Blessing Abeng, Adora Nwodo, Daniel Ochuko, Dwin the Stoic and Itsn3t.

Watch Blessing Abeng's episode of the Creator Stories Video Series ↗

Not everything I worked on was designed simply to build awareness. I also contributed to content and campaigns that connected education and storytelling to user acquisition and product adoption.

Selar 100

I contributed to the 2023 and 2024 editions of Selar 100, a campaign celebrating creators across Africa.

My work included identifying creators, reaching out to them, creating campaign assets and distributing the campaign across social.

The campaign turned the people already using Selar into part of the brand story — creating recognition for creators while giving prospective users visible examples of what was possible on the platform.

In 2023, the execution produced a 23% increase in social media followers and engagement, a 40% increase in user sign-ups, an 86% increase in Pro Plan sign-ups and a 60% increase in web traffic.

The Ultimate Digital Product Manual

I contributed to the editorial and content work behind The Ultimate Digital Product Manual, Selar's digital product education initiative, produced alongside creators and industry experts.

It has been downloaded by 21,000 creators.

Mastering Your Finances As A Creator

A second ebook, Mastering Your Finances As A Creator, written in partnership with Piggyvest — taking the same education approach into the money side of a creator's business.

Not all of it was writing.

In 2023, I led the execution of the Selar Creator Summit, a virtual event that drew more than 18,000 registrations — double the previous year's — across 21 speakers and three brand partnerships.

I ran the project, sourced and managed the speakers, built the content programme, handled social distribution and hosted a panel. The hashtag trended at number one in Nigeria during the event.

It was the same problem in a different medium: get the right people in front of the right audience, and give them a reason to turn up. I did this again in 2024, securing 15k registrations and a more pan-African array of speakers.

Read the Selar Creator Summit case study →

Over the course of two years, my work at Selar expanded well beyond making content.

I learned that different channels could do different jobs:

• Social created attention.
• SEO captured existing demand.
• Learn with Selar created affinity with our audience.
• Creator Stories created social proof.
• Educational content built authority.
• Campaigns created moments of attention and participation.
• Email helped maintain the relationship.
• Product-led content connected all of this attention back to Selar.

I enjoyed doing all this work, as extensive as it was. More than anything, it taught me how each piece could work together to produce the result we wanted.

When I left Selar, I had gone from managing two social channels to working across social, SEO, editorial, email, creator marketing and product-led content.

I had learned to think about content not simply as things a brand publishes, but as a system for earning attention, creating trust and moving people closer to a product.