NexiaCulture, formerly ng-nexus, is a professional networking site that offers Nigerian graduates and professionals the opportunity to interact with one another and make strong connections regarding job placements and entrepreneurial opportunities. I have reviewed the site earlier here.

The site is currently offering a free Nokia E65 mobile phone for a member that has 300 friends on or before September 30th, 2008. Obviously, the site is using this marketing strategy to penetrate into the overcrowded business of social networking in Nigeria.

With an Alexa traffic rank of 14 million, why shouldn’t the site give away a free Nokia phone to attract members?

But wait a minute!

This same strategy has been used by another professional networking site in Nigeria called proCareersNigeria. As a matter of fact, NexiaCulture did what some might call: Photocopying. The site has shown how desperate it could be by using a competition strategy exactly similar to that used by proCareersNigeria.com

See the competition pages for ProCareersNigeria and NexiaCulture. See also a snapshot below.

My take on this

I think that the site should be original if it wants to attract its own unique brand of members. Even if NexiaCulture got ‘copyright’ permission from proCareersNigeria, that doesn’t mean it should be careless about such a marketing strategy that might put off its members.

One word sums it up: Disappointing!