- Duration: 19 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01J8J8HBZ9H046KNQ0NC44PQ91 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01J8J8HBZ9H046KNQ0NC44PQ91)
Transcript
[Michael Houck]: Hey, how doing? [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Good, man. [Michael Houck]: What’s going on? [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Nothing much. Yeah. Yeah, I can show my screen. My computer’s got problems, but also my network is not that strong on this site. [Michael Houck]: Oh, no problem. Here, I can turn my video on just so we have good signal too. Give me a second. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Okay, no problem. Thank you. [Michael Houck]: Cool, man. Well, good to chat. Thanks for grabbing some time. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: No, thanks. Thanks also. Thanks. You’re welcome. [Michael Houck]: So you wanted to chat about ghostwriting, is that correct? [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Yes. [Michael Houck]: Cool. Can you give me a sense of where you’re at sort of in your content creation process now? What are your goals? Like, why would you bring in a partner like us? Give me some context. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: No, thanks. Thanks for the opportunity once again. My name is Pema Kivinala. I’m based in South Africa. I have a company, Vonage. I’ve been operating the company since 2017. So I’ve got 20 years experience working in youth and community development. What I’ve done, I’ve shaped my, actually designed my company in terms of, it’s called Youth and Community Development, Vonage Youth and Community Development Specialist. So the focus is around youth and community development. So what I’ve done now is that I’ve started, I currently have a newsletter, well let me say newsletters. One is on BIF, it’s called Be Intentional and Pay useful today, and the other one is beyond 9 to 5 online income. It’s only in that one. So these two newsletters are targeting primarily young people. Although the LinkedIn one is open because I feel other people, they come on board, they want to know what I’m doing. But in the main, the focus is primarily on young people. So that’s the first one. Every Tuesdays and Thursdays, like today, I share content. So my focus is around, there’s a program that I’m running, or that I coined, called Youth Generating Income Through the Digital Economy. So here I am, I’m trying to assist young people to explore and navigate the digital economy for economic opportunities. Most of the young people in my country, they save the net, They are always on the internet, on their gadgets and so forth. But they struggle to translate that into access to economic opportunities. And the youth unemployment, it’s high in my country. It’s very, very high. Young people are not working. Young people, they’re still looking for government to give them opportunities. I used to work for government. I used to head youth unit. But I discovered that it’s not possible for government to give young people job opportunities or entrepreneurship. The models that we’re using, they are old and faint. You know, it’s still the same thing of going through, trying to register a company. It will take six months or more sometimes. It depends how quick, how fast you are. So like I said, my focus is around digital economy, can we bring young people in digital economy? So what I do every Tuesday and Thursday, like I said, the newsletters. And then what I’ll also do, I’ll also share the newsletter. The main newsletter is the one on BI. I’ve been intentionally purposed today. And then I’ll take that content, share it on my Facebook, share it on my Twitter account, share it on my LinkedIn. So the LinkedIn, I’m still sharing the same content that I have on my my main newsletter, be intentional and purposeful today. Yeah, so that’s where I am. So the ultimate goal is to actually position myself as a youth champion or an agency that specializes on youth development through and through, especially around what you call the digital economy, but also on other things that I’ll bring on board as I move along. So yeah. [Michael Houck]: Yeah, that makes sense. And I love the I love the mission. I actually spend part of the winter every year in South Africa and Cape Town. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Well, okay. [Michael Houck]: Really? Well, I’ve been to Johannesburg, as well a few other places. I love it. It’s one of my favorite countries in the world. But that’s great. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. I think having the newsletter sort of be the central focus and having everything else sort of go off from It makes a lot of sense. Where would you see us fitting in? Where would you see a writer coming help out? Would that be for the newsletter or would that be for translating to social media or would that be both? Give me some context there. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: To be honest, I’ll tell you. The newsletter, of course, because now I’m still, you know, from that, I’m a solopreneur. So I do a lot of research, creating. So it takes time. To get content, but also I think to write content is still a challenge. I use AI, sometimes I get lazy and I don’t, I just back in AI, just use AI, but I have topics that I want to focus on. So mine is to make this newsletter content very attractive and appealing to young people. Another thing is that newsletters are fairly new in South Africa. Even if they’re not new, but most of the people, especially where I’m staying in the townships or my target, newsletters are regarded as formal platforms, whereby it’s probably for school or announcement or those other things that are used by institutions, maybe for a company, big companies. It’s still new in terms of young people understand that in a newsletter, you can get information that is relevant to you, depending in terms of what you want to do. And so they are fairly new. So that’s my, I’m still struggling. I had initially 350 people, but now early this year, I had to trim that to 77 because the majority were not active. So, Oh, I see. Yeah, but now I have to trim it to 77. But those that I have, they’re active. They’re active. And then the open rate is high. Yeah, it’s high. Out of get 77, around about 28%. And the click rate is still a challenge, because I share a whole lot of opportunities, a whole lot of links, wherever they can get opportunities around e-commerce. E-courses, what you call e-books and so forth. So they are still not shown, although I’ve done some, a little bit of presentation just to take them through what is a newsletter, but I see they are still struggling. So I see that your role in that, copyrights in terms of the newsletter, in terms of content, in terms of making it to be more appealing and interesting to young people. Maybe the way I structure it is not properly. Another one is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the platform that is relevant to me because my focus is B2C and B2B. So I still want to create content in that space because I see a huge potential. The newsletter that I have, I started from zero and it It’s growing on a weekly basis or monthly basis. So I see the potential, an opportunity to partner, to work with you guys on the LinkedIn. X, unfortunately for now, X, it’s another challenge in my country. X, it’s more political. Young people, they still use it, X, for political things, for current news and so forth, they don’t see X as something for where you can get opportunities. Because for me, I see, I don’t normally, I only look in terms of opportunities when I use X. I don’t, if there’s something, current issue, maybe a political thing, of course I look at it, but I don’t spend much of time. Including Facebook, I don’t spend much of time. I’m not good with other social media space. Only web and social media spaces that with intention to generate income to look for opportunities. So for now, it’s content on the newsletter, be intentional and purposeful today, as well as on my other newsletter on LinkedIn. So that’s what I see. Yeah. [Michael Houck]: That all makes sense. And just want to confirm in the interest of time, because we only have a couple of minutes. A couple minutes left. This is something that you have budget for, correct? Because this is something that we, I have writers I need to pay, obviously, and so I just want to make sure this is something that you have budget for. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Look, Michael, I’ve just started generating income, so currently I’m looking for partnerships. I’ve presented to various people, especially government, and for partnership, they look at my proposal, they’re still trying to engage me to see how we can work together. So there’s a possibility because out of seven provinces that I’ve presented, surely by next year or end of this year, I’ll have three in the back. And then the other one, I’ve applied for funding from two institutions. I’m still waiting for their feedback. The deadline was last month. End of August, so I’m still waiting for their response. I hope, because it’s taking too long, I hope it’s positive. Yeah, so that’s how I’m working. Currently, I’m working for the Bootstrap budget. I am not generating income at all, except for other things that I’m doing on the site, but particularly on the newsletter and the space that I’m currently referring to, I’m not generating income because of its I’m still trying to actually establish myself in that space. But I know for sure I’m going to need you guys to work with me moving forward. Should I secure these findings, I’m going to need you guys to be on board. So it might be something that I’m doing in advance so that I know, should I get those findings, I don’t start from scratch, I start panicking and so forth. I know where to go, where to Got it. [Michael Houck]: Well, we wouldn’t be able to dive in until there’s budget available, just because, you know, my writers need to get paid. So maybe the best next step here is just keep in touch and let me know when you do secure some of that, and then we can dive in. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Okay. No, it’s fine. And then you also, in terms of the budgets, or everything with Snapchat as soon as I secure the budget? [Michael Houck]: Yeah, once you’re in the position to start bringing on a partner like us, we can send over a few different options for what pricing would be, and you can pick the one that works best for you. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Okay, that’s fine. Approved. Cool. [Michael Houck]: All right, man. Well, hey, great to meet. And I’m really excited about what you’re doing. I think definitely needed in South Africa. And so excited to sort of support and hopefully be part of it as you get things set up. So just let me know. I’ll be here. [Phemelo Kebinelang]: Okay. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for the time. [Michael Houck]: Of course, Ben. Talk soon. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Bye.