Tuko is one of the most popular blogs in Kenya.Tuko was established in Kenya by Genesis Media Emerging Markets (GMEM) in 2015.By 2016 it was still not popular and only making losses. However, its growth shocked the entire country. By 2024 the site was receiving 7 million to 10 million monthly visitors.
Before Tuko joined the big boys in the industry, Ghafla, Daily Nation, Citizen TV and Standard Media were the dominant blogs. But there was a gap, which Tuko capitalized on. Below are the right things the blog did for it to dominate the industry.
If you lived in Nairobi around 2015 to 207, you’d notice the aggressiveness of Tuko.There were banners and marketing tools along the streets, in matatus, boda boda and markets. Each of the boda boda riders in Nairobi was provided with jackets branded Tuko News, they also received branded T-shirts.
Tuko also marketed themselves on social media.
The marketing strategy worked in their favour.
Tuko spent Ksh 40 million to Ksh 60 million to launch in Kenya. This is part of the money they used to employ content creators, rent a magnificent office and market their products. The company was ready to risk it all, and the risk was worth taking.
Tuko poached high quality bloggers from other media houses and blogs. Ghafla was the most affected of all the blogs. Tuko hired talented content creators and paid them decent amounts. Most of them earned over Ksh100k per month.
They did market research to determine what Kenyans loved to read and watch. Based on the findings, their content creators were provided with strict instructions on what content to generate. The content was basically on trending topics on social media and in the outside world. In a day, they would post 50 to 100 blog posts.
The company also invested on Long-Tail keywords. They obtained specific keywords from SemRush.
Tuko’s content was centered on topics which were loved by Kenyans. The company made sure they closed the content gap which had existed before. While the likes of Nation and Standard targeted a certain class of people, Tuko’s content targeted the masses on social media. Even the language used to create content was perfectly in line with social media users
The company created social media pages which are so much engaging and busy. They shared their content on social media. Their pages grew exponentially. There are more than 2 Facebook pages associated with Tuko which have a combined number of followers exceeding 4 million.
Tuko YouTube channel has a total of 1 million subscribers. The company hired Lynn Ngugi to interview people with unique life experiences. It’ s because of her that the channel grew rapidly. She later opened her own YouTube channel.
Tuko management didn’t want to focus on the blog alone, they diversified into YouTube videos.
Due to the excellent management systems and well thought execution of content, Tuko is now making Ksh 2 million to Ksh 5million monthly. It’s the most profitable blog in Kenya.
The company is also associated with Briefly in South Africa and Legit Nigeria.
