From Initiative to Serious Business by Liz
Hello all, my name is Liz and I am the founder of the itsbisonabiso initiative. I’m excited to be a guest blogger on Adolophine and for the opportunity to share a little bit about my itsBisonabiso platform.
What does Bisonabiso mean? Well, the name is inspired by the Congolese saying “bisso na bisso”, which means “for us by us”. I created my own version of the original phrase and meaning. I like to say, Bisonabiso means amongst ourselves. My platform showcases Congolese culture and people to the world, as well as highlighting the rest of the African diaspora. We also host events in NYC that bring people together for connection, collaboration, cultural exchange, personal and professional development. Hence the name Biso na Biso.
Time flies by so fast; it’s almost going to be a year since I started my platform. I am amazed by the evolution of this platform and how it keeps growing every day. It all started in the summer of 2019 when I was going out to a lot of Afrobeats centered events. Of course, I would encounter many west Africans at these events, and I started thinking if there was a community of Congolese people in NYC. I remember telling my friend that I wanted to host some sort of DR Congo Independence Day get together. One day in late May, my cousin in Miami came across Chef Linda A Cook’s Instagram profile. She shared that Linda was having a giveaway for her cooking and social dining experience in NYC, so I submitted my entry. I didn’t win, but Linda reached out to let me know that the original winner could not make it and if I was still interested. Of course, I was! So, I made my way up to Harlem for the amazing Linda A Cooks cooking and social dining experience. While talking we both related the fact that we didn't have many Congolese people in our network even with living in a multicultural city like NYC. I started telling Linda that we should collaborate on hosting the Congolese Independence Day gathering. Since June 30th was fast approaching, she would have to let me know if that would be possible.
So, I continued to work on how to make my idea a reality. I had no experience throwing events and the biggest challenge was trying to secure a place to host it. Then luckily, two weeks before June 30th, 2019, I get a call back from Linda telling me that she’s on board and we can host the event at space where her cooking class takes place. We agreed that Sunday, June 30th, 2019 would be DR Congo’s 59th Independence Day Soiree. After a week of planning and another week of promotion, our event was a sold-out success. We met our goal of having at least 25 people in attendance. We even had more people show up at the door when the event was ending, in true African time lol.
By the end of the night, I decided to officially launch itsBisonabiso. From there we collaborated again for the Afro-fusion BBQ, and then I ventured on my own with the Christmas na biso event. While hosting events, I am also building my online platform and community by creating compelling content for my audience. We post information about Congolese culture, trending topics in Congolese/African diaspora, and much more. An example is when I posted about Shakira’s Champeta performance during the Superbowl. Champeta is a genre of afro Colombian music with a strong influence of Congolese soukous music. So, things were evolving organically.
This year, itsBisonabiso is evolving into a business. I was going to kick things off by hosting the very first Congolese Women’s Forum that was planned for Saturday, March 21st. But like everyone else, we never saw a pandemic coming and that event has been postponed. I was so excited to be hosting my first sponsored event with brands like Shea Moisture, Harmless Harvest, and many more. I was also very excited for my audience to attend this event featuring a panel line up of amazing Congolese women who would share their stories. But of course, like many other businesses we all had to pivot.
The first few days of quarantine, I definitely took a pause from handling any of itsBisonabiso activities. I was just focusing on my work and personal life. I was feeling so much anxiety and paranoia about not catching Covid-19. But eventually, I settled into my quarantine routine of working from home, and each day I became more used to the uncertainty. My mother actually got stuck with me during quarantine. She was visiting from Kinshasa and had purposely extended her stay to help out with the Forum. So, my mom has been putting me to work in the kitchen, teaching me how to cook more Congolese dishes, from Liboke, to Pondu. My mom is usually based in Kinshasa, so It’s been fun having her here in Brooklyn.
https://www.instagram.com/itsbisonabiso/
I really took my time to process the quarantine in the month of April and waited until the end of the month to see if things would go back to normal. But then quarantine was extended so I decided this was the new normal and I had to pivot towards utilizing my itsbisonabiso online platform. I started posting more content and the effort reflected in my increase of audience and engagement. I also wasn’t sure about utilizing Instagram Live because so many people were doing it but that also happened organically. My friend Frida, founder of Kuumba Media had officially launched her streaming platform. So I was like man; I have to celebrate this somehow. So, we hopped on IG Live so she could share her story and I just kept it going. Then I started reaching out to more people from Canada to Bukavu, so many stories to tell.
Overall my online platform grew even more during this pandemic. In the month of may alone I’ve had a 43.0% growth rate and have made 28,925 impressions on Instagram.
Here are some content creating tips that have been helping me :
Consistency over perfection
But you can't just post whatever, you have to put in the effort and try your best to make it captivating
You get better at content creation the more you do it.
Also engage with other platforms, especially your audience, go to their page, leave a comment, a like, a simple emoji, etc.
Also, collaborate with other similar platforms or individuals that you like to showcase on Instagram
That's my story of how I went from initiative to serious business. Hopefully, my story inspires you to pursue whatever you always have been thinking of you doing. I hope you were able to take away some gems from my journey and make it your own.
Many Thanks,
Liz