When the team asked me to write a review of our year, I wasn’t sure what memory to pluck and present from the incredible year we’ve had at the Hub. 

It was an ask that made me reflect deeply on my first day on the team, the first day of November 2022, which marked my entrance into a path that would help me fulfill my long-held desire to get closer to marketers. It made me reflect on the fortune of being part of a community that helps you make sense of your marketing career, not only by providing the right resources but by giving you the freedom to weave the net behind the scenes and help others grow in their career too.

Working at Smarketers Hub has brought my dream about growth, collaboration, and so much more to life. We’ve worked to provide scholarships, job opportunities, practical advice from brilliant marketers, opportunities for marketers to build their portfolio, and, as a core part of who we are, a supportive community cheering each other along the way.

This has been a fantastic foundational year for us and, in this article, I’ll share my reflections as highlights of everything we’ve been up to this year. I’ll also give you a sneak peek into our plans for 2024.

Here’s a quick breakdown:

1. We expanded our footprint

2. We opened more doors for the community

3. We launched our biggest project yet

4. We built amazing partnerships and got recognized for our work

5. We’re building for the future

Let’s dive in.

We expanded our footprint

For a bigger picture of how far we’ve come, let’s take a lens into our relaunch in 2022. 

Backstory: why we relaunched

Smarketers Hub was founded by Aisha Owolabi in 2020. Aisha is a seasoned digital content marketer with seven years of experience simplifying complex ideas into easily digestible content.

In the early days of her career, Aisha longed for a supportive community to navigate her digital marketing journey, especially while pursuing a chemistry degree at the time. In January 2020, she launched Smarketers Hub to provide this support to others, uniting African marketers with stories, resources, and opportunities to inspire and enable them to build successful global careers.

Following the 2020 launch, Aisha recognized the dire need for marketers to have a community that could elevate their careers and earnings, far surpassing their initial expectations. As a result, she paused activities after 10 months of operations to regroup and equip the brand with more resources to meet this demand.

Relaunching in 2022

By our relaunch in November 2022, our social media presence was still in its infancy. We were mostly active on Instagram, barely had a presence on Twitter, and boasted only 200 newsletter subscribers. But our mission remained clear: to unite African marketers with stories, resources, and opportunities to inspire and enable them to build successful global careers. To make this happen, we knew we had to be where these marketers were. Hence, expansion became a priority, with a primary focus on social media and our newsletter.

At this stage, when I say 'we,' I’m referring to just Aisha and myself taking on the world. Being the first hire filled me with honor and inspiration, pushing me to prove myself, challenge my marketing skills, and set a solid precedent for any future superstars joining the team (excitingly, our core team has grown from two to four people, and we're stronger than ever).

Back then, I wasn't exactly a Twitter whiz, having mainly focused on Instagram and occasionally Linkedin in my previous roles. But Aisha's belief in my abilities was the fuel I needed to make Twitter work. It’s now been a year and the growth has been phenomenal. We've seen our Twitter followers skyrocket by 10x, increased our newsletter subscribers by 5x, doubled our reach and followers on Instagram, made strides on Linkedin with almost 600 community members (as of the time of writing this), and there's an exciting announcement at the end of this piece about a new channel we're introducing in 2024!

Our expansion wasn't limited to social channels alone. In January 2023, we officially launched our website, a significant milestone that helped us streamline our content distribution plan. We're witnessing an average of 2,000 website visits per month and, thanks to some SEO efforts, these numbers are far from dwindling. Color me proud. 

Growth is an important part of any community, and we've witnessed that across all the mediums we've explored this year. It solidifies Aisha's vision that a community for African marketers is an even greater need than we ever imagined. And guess what? This is just the beginning.

We opened more doors for the community

Community is the heart of our work at Smarketers Hub. We gain strength and unlock a new layer of courage when we witness members thriving on their journey and building successful careers. So, it only made sense that we created opportunities that helped Smarketers sharpen their skills and better position themselves. Let me elaborate on how we achieved that.

1. Expert feature series: To debunk the misconception that marketing isn't a promising career path—and silence people who think digital marketing is ‘just social media’ and anyone could do it—we created a series that amplifies the success stories of exceptional marketers, inspiring others through their achievements. The widely-read series has featured remarkable marketers like Tamilore Oladipo, Binjo Adeniran, Milton Tutu,Ajoke Emekene, and many others. We not only interviewed them but also hosted them on Twitter Spaces, where they shared their experiences and insights with the community. You can catch previous episodes on our events page.

2. Global opportunities: Part of being a marketer is securing a marketing job, and our role as a community-focused brand is to provide access to opportunities that help you achieve that. We started building a database of marketers seeking jobs and we've partnered with HR tech platforms like Blurpe and Talentpoel to offer both local and international roles to marketers. We've shared over 100 job opportunities on Twitter, and next year, you can expect even more collaborations, tailored experiences, and direct support to help you land your dream role.

3. Events and webinars: At Smarketers Hub, we recognize the broad nature of marketing and how these roles intersect. So, we hosted at least one monthly virtual event with marketing experts, covering diverse areas of marketing expertise. My personal favorite was our recent webinar featuring five leading marketers from different fields who provided insights into the outlook of their domains in 2024.

4. Contributing writer program: Recognizing the pool of budding and talented writers within our community, we opened our platform to those eager to expand their portfolios. The response was phenomenal! From Gigii's article on 11 types of marketing newsletters to subscribe to to Franklin's guide on planning an unforgettable event, this program has seen a roster of brilliant articles and has been a massive success.

As we stride toward our goal to be the ultimate hub for all African marketers, these are some significant steps we've taken this year to support our community, and there's no sign of slowing down soon.

We launched our biggest project yet

This update holds a special place for me as it embodies the phrase, 'Labour of Love.’

When we started the creation process for Inside the Marketers Room, I had concerns about meeting our deadline for publication. Our goal was to connect with busy marketers worldwide and gather insights from over 50 of them for a single book. To achieve that, we reached out to nearly 300 marketers to gain 50+ high-quality insights. We then weaved their ideas, insights, and experience into a cohesive narrative and designed a book that genuinely encapsulates the value these marketers bring. 

It was a huge goal. There was a moment when I found myself sat with a chapter at dawn, investing six hours straight in front of the laptop, and felt my legs grow tired when I attempted to stand up — remember this when you dive into the fourth chapter of the book. :) But we worked through it by defining our objectives, building out project management systems, and bringing in two more talented hands to help us make the book a reality.

Inside the Marketers’ Room is a book that promises continuous career growth, not only in 2024 but throughout your professional journey. We've gathered insights from experts spanning all continents, and I can guarantee you won't find another marketing book like this worldwide, specifically tailored for African marketers. I do hope you get a copy for yourself and give it a read.

We built amazing partnerships and got recognized for our work

If there's one takeaway from this article, let it be this: success rarely comes when you're flying solo. We grasped this truth early on in the year, which is why we introduced our expert feature series and contributing writer programs. But our efforts didn't stop there. We identified other remarkable organizations excelling in their work with marketers and forged alliances with them throughout the year. Here are the communities we partnered with:

1. Tech Marketers Support Initiative (T E M S I) - T E M S I provides scholarship opportunities for marketers looking to transition into the tech industry. We collaborated with them to open up their scholarship to our community, and two out of their six scholars for 2023 were from the Smarketers Hub community.

2. Other communities: We partnered with communities like Contech Africa and GrowthCon on several projects that yielded mutually beneficial results.

3. Organizations: Two noteworthy projects involved collaborating with the Selar team on a case study showcasing the success of their Selar100 campaign, and with the WiiCreate team to develop a guide for early-stage graduates who want to transition into tech.

In content marketing, earning recognition from those who admire your work is a testament to your impact. We're proud to have gained recognition from leading publications like TechCabal, Zikoko, and Benjamin Dada within a year of our relaunch.

Lastly, the cherry on top: this year brought delightful recognition for our team. We were nominated for 'Community of the Year' by the No-Code Tech Summit committee. Our Founder Aisha was also nominated for 'Content Marketer of the Year,' and I was nominated as 'Most Promising Product Marketer of the Year.' While we didn't physically take home these awards, the collective recognition we've garnered is truly remarkable, and I'm immensely proud to have been part of these exciting projects.

To the future

As promised from the outset, here's our big news for 2024 – we're officially expanding to one more channel, and that channel is none other than Slack! Several community members have asked for a closer relationship with us through a Slack channel, and we're thrilled to announce that it's coming in 2024. Stay tuned for more details early next year.

To bring this article to a close, I'll leave you with a final thought. While discussing this article with an elderly family friend, he noticed the fire in my eyes as I spoke about our journey. He said something after commending my enthusiasm that resonated deeply: 'Passion is everything.' Once you've found your passion within a profession, it's worth more than a million dollars in life's grand tapestry.

If you're passionate about marketing, rest assured, you've found a home at Smarketers Hub. Our dream is to support African marketers in reaching the pinnacle of their careers by doing what we believe is the best job in the world. We are building for the future.