My Tech Transition: How Toluwanimi Onakoya went from Social Media Manager to Communications Manager

Toluwanimi Onakoya is the Communications Manager at Lingawa (formerly Topset). She shares how she successfully transitioned from social media manager to communications manager.

My Tech Transition is a monthly ConTech series that shines a spotlight on Africans who have successfully transitioned into tech.

Written by David Onugha

Toluwanimi Onakoya is the Communications Manager at Lingawa (formerly Topset). With a background in content writing, public relations, and social media management, she shares how she successfully transitioned to leading communications strategies across industries.

As the Communications Manager at Lingawa, can you walk us through the key aspects of your role? What does your day-to-day look like, and how do you drive communication strategies within the company?

Being Lingawa's communications manager is quite exciting. It's a blend of many different things - strategy, storytelling, and maybe a dash of chaos management. My day starts with me creating a to-do list, reviewing content plans, and then refining how Lingawa communicates across platforms, whether that's emails, social media, or partnerships. Usually, I have a quick sync with key team members where we brainstorm campaigns, review content, and go over tasks and possible challenges for the week. This is very integral to ensure that we're on top of things.

I drive our communication strategy by blending strategic foresight with creative execution. Recently, I led our rebrand from Topset to Lingawa and it wasn't just about changing the logo or the website. It was a long process that went on for months and we had to tell a cohesive story across over 20-plus customer touch points. We had to update our emails, website, logos, member dashboards and more to reflect our rebranding.

My role also involves knowing when to lean into empathy when there are disruptions in day-to-day processes and knowing when to have fun with communications and content.

It’s really a big, delicate balance of analytics, creativity, and understanding what truly connects with people—constantly trying to put yourself in their shoes—and being honest and authentic in the communications you send out.

Can you share how your career journey—starting as a content writer, moving through agency work, and transitioning into a social media manager—ultimately led you to your current role as Communications Manager?

I kicked off things as a content writer at YNaija where I wrote four stories daily on trending news. We would be camped out on Twitter, looking for news stories that people were talking about, and then we would try to provide more context and explain them.

I had this need to grow and I got the chance to move to a PR agency and there I got a touch of corporate communications. I worked with brands like Access Bank and Fayrouz, helping with their communications strategy. It was such a fast lane experience and I learned so much about what communications is. It was one of those key experiences that built my muscles in a very massive way. And then, I had a stint at OurPass where I worked as a content manager. I worked on helping them flesh out their blog and content-related things in terms of aligning social media content.

As the Senior Social Media Manager at Stears, I was able to take all these things that I'd learned and the impact that I'd been able to achieve and fully own my role at Stears. I was able to grow their Instagram by 62% in four months. That was one of those big achievements that made it seem like, “Yeah, she knows what she's doing. We can give her more to do.” After this, I was promoted to Communications Manager at Stears.

Transitioning to Communications Manager at Lingawa has felt like really getting to own all I've learned so far. At every stage I've been in, the lessons, experiences, and muscle-building have been crucial for the next phase of my career. It's been very exciting, I get to blend what I've learned about strategic communications with brand building at a much larger scale. I'm now championing a team, leading with my vision, and trying to drive impact in a foundational way. Leading our rebrand is one of those things that I would put on my brag sheet. I remember coming into Topset and in one of my first conversations with the CEO at the time, I suggested a name change for the company and I remember everyone being in alignment. It was amazing to me to see that impact graduate from me bringing in an idea, nurturing it and championing the idea from the beginning to the very end.

What challenges did you face when transitioning from social media management to communications? Which transferable skills helped you, and what new skills did you need to develop to thrive in your role?

I would say that one of the biggest challenges was shifting from doing to leading. As a social media manager, you're very hands-on. Every day, there's something that you're expected to do but in communications, you’d need to take a step back to see things holistically - how every tweet, email, or campaign aligns with the holistic brand strategy. I think it was one skill I learned during my time at Stears. As a social media manager, you always have someone to lead you. It’s much easier to just be that person who is receiving information without taking accountability for decisions. When I moved to communications, I remember my lead would often ask my opinion on communications material I had worked on and if I thought they were good to go. And I’d feel so frustrated, thinking, “Can you please just tell me?!” but this approach helped build the muscle for where I am now.

Now, in my current position, I make it a point to give everyone I work with or manage the spirit of ownership. I don't even think it's something that's particularly common culturally, but I think it's one thing I appreciate learning from the people I came in contact with.

I think that there were transferable skills that helped me go from social media to communications. It was kind of easy when it came to the content creation part of things - adaptability, understanding the audience, and staying abreast with cultural trends. Social media teaches you to think really fast. With communications, there’s a tendency to relax into things but that can be a detriment if you're not on your feet particularly when it comes to crisis moments. Social media experience teaches you what to do to nip things in the bud during crisis moments. So, I would say that social media management added something to my knowledge base and skill set that helped me function so well in the communications space.

I think a new skill that you probably need to look out for is stakeholder management. You’ll need to fine-tune your communications on an executive level. Communications management involves a lot of relationship building and you’d need to talk to people. You're no longer just creating content or crafting messages, you're also aligning teams, presenting to leadership, and shaping internal narratives.

Analytics is also a big one. I see people who are doing social media running away from the maths but you really stand out when your research and your communications are data-backed. This makes you more impactful when you're talking to management.

Was there a specific moment when you felt validated in your career transition—a project, a milestone, or recognition that reinforced your decision to move from marketing to communications?

I'm always of the opinion that people should have brag sheets so they can take note of things that they've done. At Stears, I helped lead the communications strategy for the Stears B2C sunset before the move to a B2B model. This involved having the CEO do a sit-down interview and it was by far very successful because we had a 70% positive sentiment amongst our target audience. People were so attached to the Stears of old and they still talk about it fondly. So, for the B2C to B2B transition to happen, it had to follow a delicate, carefully done process. I remember I was given the Brand Storyteller of the Year award at the 2023 No-Code Tech Awards, and it was piggybacking off the impact that I had with Stears.

I would say one thing that makes my work really rewarding is the people impact. This is how your work helps people access good products. For example, there’s a great deal of storytelling behind what we do at Lingawa—emotional stories that highlight the impact we’ve had on people’s lives. Parents are connecting with their kids, individuals are rediscovering their cultural roots, and people are having full conversations with their older relatives because they now understand their native language. With the Japa wave, we’ve seen more people feeling disconnected and turning to Lingawa as a bridge to reconnect and experience their culture. You hear these emotional testimonials from people, and it hits you that your work played a role in making that connection possible—whether it was through a marketing video you created or how you packaged and shared their stories. By reimagining and sharing those stories with others, you help them see, connect, and resonate with the message. It creates this ripple effect: they enjoy it, onboard on our platform, and the momentum keeps building.

A major thing that I did for the Topset to Lingawa rebrand was push for a CEO sit-down video. We'd already created a motion graphics video but it was important that the CEO sat down and talked about why we decided to rebrand. The video had an emotional ring and the comments people were positive. People loved the story behind the rebrand and this would not have happened with just a motion graphics video. Having written the script for the video, I felt so validated because it became the source piece for a lot of news platforms. Knowing that this was my brainchild was very rewarding.

In other no-code roles like marketing, success is often measured by specific metrics like revenue growth and user engagement. What metrics define success in your role as Communications Manager?

We often think that communications is not so separate from marketing. and as time goes on, the lines keep blurring. One of the biggest lessons for me in my career is “don't try to split it”. Don't try to say revenue growth and user engagement aren’t success metrics because that's what really communicates your impact as the communications manager. It is very important that you try to measure your metrics with the bottom line. If you ran an influencer campaign as part of your storytelling or communication strategy, how effective was it? How many leads did those influencers bring in? How did it impact the company’s bottom line? Startups are not the same as more established sectors where marketing budgets can be a bit more flexible. Here, every dollar matters, and you have to fight to justify and defend each one. That’s why it’s crucial for metrics to clearly define and validate your success.

I always try to amplify the impact of what we’re putting out as much as possible. For instance, there’s a wealth of positive comments with the CEO sit-down video I mentioned earlier, and I make it a point to highlight them. It’s a way to showcase how our efforts are influencing sentiment and engagement, which is just as important as the numbers.

There are plenty of tools to help track and measure this effectively. I always suggest that communications people try to get their company to pay for tools or even try to use the trial plans for when they running campaigns so they have data-backed context for what they think is doing well. Brand24, for example, has sentiment analysis. So that's how I'm able to say that for our Stears campaign when we went from B2C to B2B, we had a 70% positive sentiment analysis. That is from the data, it's not something I pick from my head and I'm able to talk about it as the impact and success that campaign had. These kinds of platforms also calculate your average publicity value. I can’t say the exact amount we spent on our campaign transitioning from TopSet to Lingawa, but I can tell you that the estimated publicity value was over $38,000. This is based on the mentions we received, and the platforms involved. While it doesn’t directly reflect the money spent, it’s a way of demonstrating success. When we compare, the publicity value far exceeds our actual spend, highlighting the impact we were able to achieve—both organically and otherwise. I would say that try to get on these platforms that help you objectively provide data to back up the work that you do. You always want to communicate to management how your role is affecting the bottom line.

What do you consider the most common challenges faced by those looking to transition into your field, and what strategies can help overcome them?

Experience, knowledge, and practice are the three things you’d need to overcome any challenge you might face in your tech transition. A lot of people think communications management is just “English and vibes.” and the job can be done with ChatGPT and the like. Not to say that AI tools can’t help you—they are great for elevating your work—but there are a lot of soft skills that champion your role, which I really had to learn the hard way. If you are doing a lot of relationship-building, how friendly are you? It might seem irrelevant, but your friendliness can make all the difference. Can you keep up a conversation and make people feel at home?

How creative are you? Do you have a knack for storytelling? Can you craft narratives that engage people from start to finish? Storytelling is a critical part of this field, and it takes time and practice to develop. If you’re not there yet, don’t worry; it’s something you can grow into, no matter where you’re starting from. So that's why I would say the challenge is being able to attain these skills and to do that, you have to put in the work - whether that is working with an agency that can help you or it’s just you taking a couple of courses.

I think something that really helped me is my passion for the communications industry. I consume so much information, whether it's on TikTok, ad books, or even just watching what is trending in the communications world. I think doing that is a low-hanging fruit. You could dedicate just 5 minutes a day to reading and it would add to your knowledge base.

Another challenge you might face is imposter syndrome where you feel like you're doubting yourself. You can only get past this by doing the work and pushing yourself.

What advice would you give to someone looking to transition into tech?

I would say a big thing, at least in my industry, has been relationship-building. The market is so saturated that people don't want to go through the process of sifting through CVs to find somebody who may end up not being well-suited for the job. It's easy to appear as though you know your onions without actually knowing them. So a lot of times, people tend to depend on referrals to fill job openings. I would say that relationship-building is something you should not take for granted in your job search. Wherever you're working right now, you want to do the best possible job that you can so that people can easily vouch for you. That's something that has been a consistent thread across my career. People have vouched for me and that has helped me get to where I am.

I've been working on a newsletter called Communications and Chaos where I kind of talk about all these. I chaotically talk about things I know in communications and I plan to include job openings that might be helpful for people.

There are a lot of other communities too that have also been really helpful for me. I'm in the Non-Tech in Tech and the ConTech Africa communities. People post jobs in these communities before they put it on LinkedIn or job boards and you can even speak to the person that posted it directly and pitch yourself.

I've also had to hire so I have some thoughts around the presentation of your CVS. Something you should look out for is ensuring that your formatting is right. I did a series on this one time because I was so upset. I had 900 applications for a social media role and I only was able to bring it down to 20. I just kept thinking about all the things that I saw. You don't need more than two pages in your CV, and you want to check for errors before sending it out. The way you see a text message with grammatical errors and think it is a scam is how hiring managers would also think you're a scam if your CV has grammatical errors. You want to be very particular about that.

You want to at least push up relevant experience. You can't be applying for a social media role and have no relevant experience even if it's just a course or an internship. I saw people feeling the need to put their profile pictures on their CVs and that wasn't a huge error, but it’s something you can do without as it could introduce unintentional bias.