The New Year is full of hopes and dreams. Many of those dreaming are future investors in the counties, and all of them, young or old, rich or hustling, men or women are budding with ideas.
In the digital era, so much is changing and counties must adapt. From promoting traditions and culture, peace and democracy, pop culture, famous places, way of life, technology and many more.
As it is, counties have promotional videos with clips of different scenes, and mostly on tourist attractions and sites. But what if they promoted different aspects of their counties independently?
Well conceptualised, selected, organised and packaged information, done frequently, can go a long way in communicating the mandates of the counties, and existing gems. Furthermore, the information has to be summarised to be consumed in roughly a minimum of three minutes and a maximum of five minutes.
In Kakamega county, for instance, bull fighting can make one of those quite interesting items to watch. Pottery in Ilesi in the county can make another thought-provoking clip. The preserved intangible cultural heritage of the Isukuti dance can also make a very fascinating short video to watch.
But how can these be done to attract viewership, from potential investors and visitors, both local and international? Or even just to entertain and document our culture and different advancements for posterity’s sake?
Take for instance, bull fighting.
Kakamega Senator Boni Khalwale has done his best to promote the sport, but is it enough? The county should consider how to make this sport colourful and interesting, invest in a little history of bullfighting to the Luhyas, when and how it practised, if its seasonal or not, and who practices it, and further how the sport has helped the community.
This simple example can be replicated in different counties in their manufacturing, distribution, food production, retail industry and peace efforts, and even medical treatment and show the county’s flair with service communicating the quality that people should expect.
During production and editing, it would be best to avoid too much branding of the county governments name and logo, donors and even the leadership. This, I mean will distort the whole idea. After all it is a particular aspect being promoted and not a political campaign.
These short videos can then be promoted through social media platforms, shown and gifted to potential investors, shown during festivals and conferences, kept in county offices and played over and over on their tvs and also shown to school children to understand their counties and country more.
These videos can also boost the research efforts of university students practising particular disciplines. As a result, these students would also build on these videos by providing deeper and relevant contribution to the existing content.
Instead of a lot of taxpayer money spent by our leadership on travelling to other counties to benchmark, these videos can save us from that and communicate in detail the various achievements by the 47 able counties.
Vera is a part time lecturer and a communications researcher
