WATCH: Meta investing in Africa to inspire creators on Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads

Meta has made great strides with new features to its social media platforms to inspire creators across the globe and in South Africa.

On Friday, the tech giant hosted the Creators Lab South Africa event, creating a fantastic opportunity for Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook users to connect with fellow creators, participate in engaging workshops, and experience the latest innovations within Meta’s ecosystem.

“Together, we’ll shape the future of digital content and experiences,” Meta said.

Watch Moon Baz speak about WhatsApp Channels

The Head of Creator Partnership @instagram @Meta Middle East, Africa & Turkey Moon Baz says there is more features coming to WhatsApp Channels, @WhatsApp pic.twitter.com/iWqiTWoCQK

— 𝙵𝚊𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚕 𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚕 (@FaizelPatel143) September 22, 2023

Investing in Africa

Speaking to The Citizen, Moon Baz, Head of Meta’s Creator Partnerships, Middle East, Africa and Turkey said Meta has invested “heavily” in the Africa region.

“We want to draw the emerging creator ecosystem here and support them in the educational front in terms of getting to understand what are the different products that Meta offers and how they can navigate, leverage and grow their reach to build their community to make a living.

“It’s called Creator Lab Life because it’s a continuous flow of education and engaging with out creator ecosystem,” Baz said.

ALSO READ: Mark Zuckerberg announces global launch of WhatsApp Channels

WhatsApp Channels

In the past week, Meta launched a number of features for WhatsApp including Flows and WhatsApp Channels.

Channel is aimed towards broadcasted messages.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the global rollout of the feature on his new channel this week.

Baz said Channels is available for everyone across the globe.

“It’s a one-way broadcast channel for organisations and individuals to share timely updates with their followers. We currently have up to two billion users on WhatsApp. So, it’s a way for you to reach these numbers of users at this stage.”

Threads

Baz also shared details about Zuckerberg’s brand new social media platform, Threads.

The platform which went live on app stores in July, is arguably the biggest challenger to Musk’s X.

“We were super-surprized by the signups. We had a hundred million signups in the first five days. We are investing more on Threads going forward and more features will be rolled out,” Baz said.

Baz said Meta will also be adding hashtags to Threads, but could not provide a timeline of when the feature will be rolled out.

Baz added that Meta is getting feedback from users about improving Threads.

ALSO READ: WhatsApp launches ‘Flows’ to improve interactions between businesses and customers