Phone as Office:

For Shamim Mayanja, switching on a camera is no longer simply about entertaining an online audience. It is work.

Better known online as Zubedda Byantalo, Mayanja’s content carries overtones of humor, and she has built an audience around the videos she regularly uploads to YouTube. Behind the humour, conversations and entertainment is something increasingly common among Uganda’s digital creators: a business.

“A brand seeking visibility on her platform can buy a package that includes three brand mentions, logo placement, a squeeze-back and a short advertisement inserted into her videos, she says.

Mayanja says she initially charged companies about Shs4 million a month for such partnerships. Today, that price has risen to Shillings 5 million a month.

Across Uganda, a growing number of young people are attempting to turn videos, podcasts, blogs, comedy, photography and social media posts into livelihoods.

Their rise is part of a much bigger transformation taking place in Uganda’s economy as businesses increasingly compete for the attention of consumers online.

Uganda has seen a steady growth in Smartphone usage from roughly 7.6 million in 2020 to over 18 million by 2024, continuing upward into 2026 according to Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) data. This has been the driver of the digital creation business.

According to Rosette Najjomba Ssegujja, a Commercial Director at Newman Foods Uganda has watched that shift from the corporate side, her brand can no longer afford to regard social media personalities merely as people entertaining audiences online.

“Because everyone is on their phone, digital influencer marketing drives a lot, about 80 percent of consumer habits today,” she says. “It could actually drive more sales than traditional media,” she adds.

Instead of depending exclusively on television, newspapers, radio and billboards, brands are following customers onto social media.

Ssegujja says her company allocates a significant amount of its marketing resources to digital marketing, depending on annual performance. Creators and brand ambassadors who come on board sign contracts and can negotiate how they are paid.

“If you’re coming on board as a digital content creator or as an ambassador, there’s always a contract that you sign,” she says. “Your payment does come in monthly or however you prefer.”

For Mayanja, arrangements like these have transformed something that begins with making videos into a commercial enterprise.

According to Micheal Bwambale who has depended on digital content creators for product validity, the greatest value creators sell is not simply the number of people following them, but trust and consistence.

When a familiar online personality recommends a product, he says he is sometimes more willing to consider buying it even when the company itself is unfamiliar.

“I have followed this creator for a long time and I know them, but I don’t know the brand … because I know this person, they connect me to the brand and I come to know more about it. I realize it aligns with my preferences, hence I go ahead and buy it.”

That relationship is the foundation of the influencer economy.

Therefore, in a country where youth unemployment rates stand at 14%, young creators are therefore spending time building audiences around comedy, lifestyle, education, commentary, fashion, food or entertainment. Businesses then pay for access to those communities.

When audiences buy products because they trust the person promoting them, transparency becomes part of the business. Consumers need to distinguish between personal recommendations and paid advertising.

Creators also have a responsibility not to use that trust to promote misleading, harmful or fraudulent products.

The accountability question therefore runs in both directions: government must create a fair environment for digital businesses, while creators must be accountable to the audiences from whom their commercial value comes.

The government has faced serious criticism for not thoughtfully archtecting the digital ecosystem to promote digital entrepreneurship and employment while maintaining a tax and regulatory environment that makes the basic tools required to participate in that economy expensive.

In this, activists have highlighted tax and the cost of internet as core challenges facing digital creators. The Uganda Communication Commission has issued a directive that demands that all content creators must register and get authorization.

Import duties and value-added tax (VAT) on entry-level devices make smartphones expensive compared to neighboring countries.

 High data expenses and digital literacy deficits mean many people who live in covered areas still do not use mobile internet.

The directive requires that they pay Shs100,000 for an Online Broadcaster Authorization as a way of formalizing the digital content economy.

Mayanja is complying, linking her digital work to the country’s financial and taxation systems.

Digital creator Mucyo Ale Bobo says he has continued doing business without authorization, and believes the existing tax regime reduce the benefit margins from content creatio

“If government wants creators to register businesses, obtain licences, pay taxes and operate formally, creators need accessible information about what they are required to pay, why they are paying it, where they should register and what benefits formalisation provides,” he says.

Transparency in regulation becomes particularly important in an industry where thousands of young people can enter business without ever walking into a conventional office.

According to digital communications specialist Gerald Busingye the government needs to think beyond enforcement to building a sustainable content industry that will drive business and the economy.

Creators also need training and support that allows them to compete professionally on global platforms, he says.

He also argues that Ugandan creators cannot build sustainable businesses by waiting exclusively for social media platforms or companies to pay them. One opportunity, he says, is affiliate marketing.

Under the model, creators promote products or services and receive a commission when their audiences generate sales.

“Affiliate marketing is actually one of the leading economies now in marketing … instead of a company simply paying someone to advertise, creators can earn a portion of the revenue they help generate,” he says.

Uganda Communications Commission regulates various forms of online communication and broadcasting.

Regulation can protect consumers, create professional standards and provide mechanisms for dealing with harmful or illegal content.

It should also give creators accessible channels through which they can question decisions, seek clarification and participate in discussions about regulations affecting their livelihoods.

A thriving creator economy can generate incomes, businesses, taxes and jobs while giving companies new ways to reach customers.

But getting there requires a policy environment that recognises the smartphone not merely as something Ugandans use to consume entertainment, but increasingly as a tool of production.

Uganda’s digital transformation will therefore ultimately be measured not simply by how many people have internet connections, but by what citizens are able to build with those connections — and whether the institutions governing that transformation can demonstrate that their policies are helping rather than hindering them.

For creators such as Mayanja, the transformation is already underway.

The challenge for Uganda is ensuring that the systems governing this new economy grow as quickly — and as accountably — as the people building it.