How Yuorit Yoghurt Achieved Business Success Through Social Media

Did you know that without a physical store to their name, Yuorit Yoghurt has sold over 20,000 bottles of yoghurt through social media?

The 17-months-old confectionary business is based in Jos, Plateau state and has been growing at an incredibly amazing pace since its inception. At just 6 months old, they had sold 6,000 bottles across several states in Nigeria. At 14 months, the numbers tripled to over 20,000 bottles sold and it’s been an encouraging journey so far.

Why it Matters:

Although Nigeria has been recorded to house an outstanding number of SMEs, not all of these businesses have found or maintained the strength to grow or remain relevant. Hence, how a small business like Yuorit Yoghurt scaled through these challenges and still remains relevant, is one story that deserves to be heard.

On this week’s episode of The Hub, we engaged the business’ founder and CEO, Neken Chuwang in a conversation to learn about the company’s journey into increasing recognition, as well as their secrets, plans and challenges.

“There is nothing as amazing as meeting someone who has been through what you are currently going through. There’s nothing as amazing as meeting someone that doesn’t just advise you to succeed but tells you that I have failed,” Neken said in the interview.

Don’t have time to play the full podcast? I’ve got you covered. Here’s a quick rundown of all that was discussed during the chat.

Leveraging social media platforms

While many entrepreneurs have attested to the power of social media in growing their businesses, a lot more entrepreneurs have shown indifference to the topic. Neken censures this indifference to ignorance and laziness.

He said, “Knowledge is power! The more you have knowledge that exposes you to more possibilities, the more you see yourself exploring and harnessing it.”

“People come on Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram to engage on memes and controversial posts, so it’s not like they don’t have data to be online when it comes to being consistent with posting their business,” he added.

He attested to Facebook’s impact on his business, describing it as the most helpful and useful social media platform in his books.

“I’ve enjoyed facebook the most because of how public it can be. It gives your content a public appearance so that people that are not even your friends or in your contact list get to see your post and connect. People can also see the comments too,” he explained.

Consistency: The Backbone of Every Successful Business

Although social media is indeed a powerful marketing tool, the singer turned entrepreneur strongly believes that consistency is the greatest driving force of every business.

“There were times when I felt tired and did not know what to post or have the strength to post anything but then I had promised myself that I must post at least once everyday. It’s a commitment. As entrepreneurs, there is a level of commitment you need to have to be able to do that. We must spark our minds to be hardworking even in the face of creativity,” he said.

He emphasized that consistency is the one thing that has kept him going. Notwithstanding the challenges.

Tackling Challenges with a Positive Mindset

Bad Reviews:
While bad reviews can be discouraging to business owners, Chuwang sees reviews (both good and bad) as a positive push in the right direction; challenging him to do better.

“I believe bad reviews are not for the public but for me. They are for the entrepreneur to go back to the drawing board to fix up their mistakes because it’s better to be given a bad review than to stay silent about it.

“As a product owner, you don’t go about complaining to your board, rather you learn to apologize for the bad experience you’ve given them and work towards fixing it” he explained.

Staying Relevant:
The entrepreneur took us down memory lane as he discussed the brand’s name transition when obtaining its trademark.

“The transition from Yummie to Yuorit was one of the most challenging moments for us as a company. When we got to do a trademark for the product, we discovered the name Yummie wasn’t available. I was really discouraged and it was as if we’ve come to the end of the road. However, I was encouraged by the people around me and the knowledge that the quality of my product is not determined by its name”, he said.

He explained that although the name is good, the product itself outmerits it. As long as the product or service you’re supplying is top-notch and of superior quality, people will patronize you regardless of the name you give it.

Advancing at a Steady Pace:
Chuwang also explains that while advertising their products, entrepreneurs should remember to ‘cut their coats according to their size’.

He said: “For a startup brand, you don’t want to spend all your money on advertising and when the clients start coming, you can’t make the actual product because you’ve spent all your money.”

He believes that another trick to staying relevant is to use readily available tools and media to make the most of what one has while projecting to do great and mighty things in time to come.

Final Note

Yuorit Yoghurt teaches us that no business is too small to scale and make waves using social media. It’s all about putting in the hard work and staying consistent while waiting for results.

“On our page, I saw some posts that had just 5 likes but then you can see that they reached up to 25-100 people. At that point, I realized that not everyone that sees my posts has to like it. However, the consciousness of that post remains in their hearts. So whenever they see my yogurt somewhere, there’s a familiar feeling that comes to them because of how they’ve seen it before. If someone that saw my post on Monday did not have money in their pocket to patronize me and I keep posting everyday, on Friday, they might have a breakthrough and since I still showed up, they’re reminded of my product and they get to patronize. Keep posting! Never stop posting!” Neken encouraged entrepreneurs.