How AI Cuts The Cost Of Social Media Content For Small Businesses with Ismeen Haruna (Nigeria)

Two months for a single advert used to feel normal. Now it feels like a warning sign. Dr Ariel R King sits down with AI expert and illustrator Sir Ismeen Haruna to unpack how artificial intelligence is reshaping content creation for businesses that rely on social media marketing but do not have studio budgets.

We get practical about what the tools actually are: large language models for copy and planning, image generation for fast visual concepts, and video models that are racing towards realism. Then we push further into automation and AI agents that can track what is trending, help you respond quickly, and even report performance like messages, likes, and ad spend, so you can stop guessing and start improving your workflow. If you have ever felt stuck between “I need to post” and “I cannot afford to produce”, this conversation offers a clear path forward.

Sir Ismeen Haruna also shares the origin story behind House 2070, including a hard pivot when AI made a previous stock image business model obsolete. That leads into a bigger question: will AI replace artists, animators, and designers, or will it reward the creatives who learn to direct the tools with real skill and cultural insight? We talk about decentralised storytelling, why it matters for African creators, and how lowering production costs can let more people tell their own stories through their own lens. 

If you enjoyed this, subscribe, share with a friend building a business, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What is the first part of your content process you want AI to simplify?

Music, lyrics, guitar and singing by Dr Ariel Rosita King

Teach me to live one day at a time
with courage love and a sense of pride.
Giving me the ability to love and accept myself
so I can go and give it to someone else.
Teach me to live one day at a time.....

Transcript

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Welcome And The Big Promise

Dr Ariel R King 0:49

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Business of Life with Dr. King. Today we have a very special guest, sir. Ismin Hari Haruna. Welcome, sir. Thank you very much for having me. Thank you, Doctor. Would you please introduce yourself to our audience?

smeen Haruna 1:06

Okay, that would be great. My name is Ismin Harry Haruna, an AI expert. I'm an illustrator, I and a promotion of Africa artist. So I have a company called House 2070. So what we do at House 2070 is we tend to help companies cut down costs when it comes to their creating content. So what we notice is that anytime a company wants to create an ad, they normally hire a studio artist, a lot of creatives. And this will run into the thousands, and mostly will take like months to do. But with the rise of AI and the rise of yeah, learning, we notice this cost can be cut down drastically, and also the time of delivery. So what would take a normal studio two months to create with AI, you can create that within seconds, or we can less it can create out within a day. And when it comes to iteration of the round form, that's like that's like an like a mystic in the in the art. So with AI, you can correct that.

Dr Ariel R King 2:03

That's fantastic. So I'm sorry to interrupt you. So could you tell our audience? So, what is going to be our topic for today? Is it AI AI and art creation? Or what's our topic for today, sir?

smeen Haruna 2:15

So I assume this is a business channel, and a lot of people have been hearing about AI, AI, AI, AI. We are in the we're in the in the phase where social media drives more traffic than our traditional media. Everybody's on social media, Facebook, Mrita, and everything. And every business wants to get into the social media boom. But the problem most businesses will have is for the large budget to hire artists, to hire a videographer to make content. But with AI, it's a bit of a bit of learning, you can create your own content automatically with a fraction of the price. So imagine you spending a thousand dollars to spending like $200, or like $200. Sorry, let's say like ten dollars. That's how drastic the cost can be cut down with AI. So that's as I that's a zone.

Dr Ariel R King 3:08

That's amazing. That's amazing. Wonderful. Okay, I'm a newbie to this, so please, as as some audience might be like you, they might be quite good with AI, and others like myself are just starting. So let's hear more about this and um let's start from the beginning.

smeen Haruna 3:26

Oh, okay. What's up at the beginning to last happen?

Dr Ariel R King 3:29

Well, I think that the right now,

Why AI Slashes Content Costs

Dr Ariel R King 3:32

even for me, I've noticed that the I'm not going to say the names, but there's one or two AIs, but then there are AIs that the foodies that you said for yourself for R, the movies. And you know, maybe a year or two ago, I only heard about one or two AI possibilities, and now there's so many. So I guess we can start with can all of them, are all of them the same? Are they equal? Are they different? And which ones do you use and why?

smeen Haruna 4:00

Okay, so let me just break it down because I I'll so I'll break it down as you know, this means anybody that listened to this doesn't uh necessarily have an idea of AI. So basically, when it comes to creating content, the length AI is usually used. So we have the LLM that's large language model. So these are your chargebt, your cloud. So these are mostly where you type it, you type a prompt and the generic text, though some of them are starting to image, but primarily you only generate text. So we have the image uh models, we're talking about the mid-journey. I don't even chat about mid-journey.

Dr Ariel R King 4:40

No, okay, so as I said, I'm quite new, and there might be people like yourself, but that's why I'm so interested. So thank

LLMs Images And Video Models

Dr Ariel R King 4:47

you, sir.

smeen Haruna 4:47

So we have the mid-journey, that's for the image models clean. Sorry, mid-journey, uh we have Chat GPT, we have C dance, we have the best now, the best model, Nano Banana Pro. So that's for the image model. So for the video models, we have clean, we have C dance. These are the two relics competing models that when it comes to realism, that's what we use at the studio. So basically, it all depends on what you're looking for when it comes to engineering image. But what we notice is that with a bit a little bit of a little bit of exercise and a little bit of practice, almost anybody can create content within AI. You need little or no experience. There are systems you can follow online that doesn't necessarily require you typing on your screen, typing on your keyboard, it just requires you telling the AI what you want, and the AI is that smart that it can process what you want and create entire content for you. So, for example, uh, you want to you're selling a bakery and you want to create content regarding your bakery stuff. So that's what you can do. You tell the AI what you want. Okay, you want to create a social media content post for a week. AI will ask you some questions. Okay, why your target audience? Give AI your target audience, ask you your logo, your image. You have any image, it tells you that you upload it to the AI, and AI will go as far as creative for you. Post, I mean visual content, I mean flyers, flyers you can post on social media for entirely. AI can also go as far as credit for you. Write up, I mean the copy, make sure the copies are tracked in anything without stressing. So that's what AI can do for businesses.

Dr Ariel R King 6:40

Oh that that's life-changing.

smeen Haruna 6:45

Yes, that's actually life changing, and when the current rise of when you call, I don't know if you have cloud, cloud, cloud code. Okay, so it's so so good that with cloud code, once you connect something like Higgsville, so Higgsview is like an AI platform, like an AI platform that has plenty AI tools on it. You can connect cloud to Higgsville and automate the entire process. Like

Trends Automation And AI Agents

smeen Haruna 7:12

every day the AI goes online, you can give it some, it goes online, see what is buzzing, what is trending, and it reports to you. It gives you okay. For example, now let me say, and yeah, I don't like a challenge, like a bucket challenge where people pour water on each other. I don't know if you are you don't have that challenge.

Dr Ariel R King 7:30

No, what kind of challenge? And remember, this is an international audience, so it should be something all on the ice bucket challenge.

smeen Haruna 7:36

Yes, yes, I think there's a big one ice bucket challenge there. So it's when where um you pour water on you and you tend to react. So the AI can just pick that trend and just give it the right of it. So you guys can create this trend because once you blow the trend, there's a high chance your content will be picked by the algorithm on social media. That's what basically AI can do.

Dr Ariel R King 7:58

I see. So it it actually is able to go in and to see what's happening in real time in order to see what's trending, and then to use that with the understanding of what you do and your content in order to make content that's relevant, so then yours can also trend with the whatever is is going viral. Is that correct?

smeen Haruna 8:25

Yes, seamlessly. All you just need to just allow, because nowadays people tend to whatever software now you're creating, your software, if you want your sort of software to sell, you should be able to communicate with AI. Before when we create software, we always create software that can talk to humans, but now we are connecting to AI tool. So imagine your Facebook being connected to an AI tool that can go through your Facebook, check how many messages you have, check how many likes you have, check how much you have spent on the ads, and it sends you a text message on your phone every morning. Like, oh, you got this, you got this, you got this, you got this, all through AI.

Dr Ariel R King 9:10

That's amazing. That's almost also like having an executive assistant or a person working with you, but it's actually a machine.

smeen Haruna 9:16

Yeah, they are called agents, AI agents.

Dr Ariel R King 9:20

Okay, that's amazing. Okay, great. So thank you for giving an introduction. I really needed that. And so tell me, with all of these tools, how how do we use them? And what what have you found the best way to use these tools for for the people that you work with, for example?

smeen Haruna 9:41

Okay, so it ultimately depends on the individual. If you can give me an example of a business or an individual, then I'll can point out the tools that I recommend for the person, AI to recommend.

Dr Ariel R King 9:53

So then so then that's what you do with clients is that you look at their business and you actually help to pick out AI tools for them that will help them to progress in their business?

smeen Haruna 10:07

No. So what we do on our own business is basically we just help people create ads using AI, cost-effective ads using AI. So we have a we have like a we have like a plant where when you come on the plan, we create for you content for entire months. You don't have to stress about the content for entire months, and we also infuse that with cartoons and a little bit of humanity and even the human touch, and we only deal with companies that have student-centric products because that's what that's where we are very skilled at. Because among us, we have cartoons,

House 2070 And Content Subscriptions

smeen Haruna 10:42

we have illustrators, so we have that stuff. So we only do companies that have children comments, but in general, uh what for example now, what a librarian will need, AI content librarian will need is totally different from what an architect will need. What an architect will need will be totally different from what a doctor will need. But for every niche you have, every niche you have, there's always an AI tool for you because as it is like this, AI is going the license. I can say it has gone viral, but it's just the next stage of technology in general. And people need to jump on this bandwagon because there's this fear that AI will replace people, which is which is quite a lie. AI will not replace people, AI will just replace people that people that have that know AI will be replaced, people that don't know AI. As I said earlier, especially when it comes to generating, especially when it comes to creativity, no matter how the AI is smart, you can't think like a human. So, what AI is basically imagine, imagine a very at the at its core, AI is just referencing a lot of data. AI AI doesn't know when it's wrong, it doesn't know when it's right, it's just a lot of data being fed to it. So imagine you having access to the entire internet. Definitely if you kind of change your way, make judgments. So that's why you see companies keep making reference that this AI, this AI save your content. Sorry, data, data, data, data, priorities, everything. Because whatever you fit to the AI, basically, that's what it will give you.

Dr Ariel R King 12:21

That's that's really that's really amazing. Yeah, I love this idea too. I mean, that you're working specifically with creativity, with cartoonists, with art and AI. I guess can you tell me more about where do you think it is now and how far do you think that it will go with AI and art? I think art is extremely important for culture, it's extremely important for business, it's extremely important for life. So I find this so interesting. Can you tell me where you think AI is now with with producing and helping to generate all types of art, you know, for particular whatever the business is, and where you think it's going to be going in the future?

smeen Haruna 13:03

So uh thank you for asking me that question. That's a quite amazing question. So before the rise of AI, most people can't tell that story because it requires a lot of budget to run a food production movie. So we I tend to we tend to watch what the big studios, Disney,

Will AI Replace Creative Workers

smeen Haruna 13:22

Paramount, give us to watch. So that's and obviously there's a lot of things that we vetted based on, well, I say, based on profits, because it's a company, they must make money. But with the rest of AI, you and I, you can tell our story, and this gives the well, let's say, third world country a lot of ways to sell our stories. So our stories should not be told by other people. Our story should be told by us because if if Flampton and Disney is coming to sell that, tell our story, they'll definitely tell in the eyes of, let's say, yeah, a British man or an American, and they'll sell it basically for the profit purpose. But with AI, uh, my friend and I just put some money resources in place and create our entire movie. And believe me, the way AI is going so so fast, you cannot tell the difference. So it's so bad either sometimes if I jump on LinkedIn and I see some images, I see some videos, I can I am very, very, what I say, prompted to tell people that this is AI. But it's so good that it takes a professional eye to tell you, no, this is AI, this is fake. So when it comes to where I see AI in the next future, I see AI bring the giving, what I say, being decentralized, content being decentralized, information being decentralized, storytelling being decentralized, and everybody has an opportunity to tell their

Decentralised Storytelling Through AI

smeen Haruna 14:52

story through their own lens, not through the lens of another company or another corporation.

Dr Ariel R King 14:57

That's really fantastic. So you're in so many ways you're cutting out the middle person. And I love the fact that you're talking. Yeah, and I love the fact that you're talking about people who have the stories are actually telling the stories, which means that the story itself is going to change. But even more importantly, those who are all over the world who are getting that story are going to know the true essence, the purity of whatever that story is. You know, I'm so curious. So can you please tell me about more about you and your partner and what you've done and the experiences you've had? I mean, even just as a business owner, starting with, okay, this is what we think we want to do, and putting resources together, and what you've been able to come up with. Because I think that in itself is its own story.

smeen Haruna 15:55

Okay. So uh let me just give a shot, let me just take two steps behind and just give a background. Maybe it might make the story better. So three years ago, I made a bullstep. I started like one of the first stock image websites in Africa. So, what my company was in then, my former company, me and my friends created, was that we noticed that when it comes to stock images, when I mean stock images, I mean images people use for their flyers and their posters. We hardly get African content. We get hardly get people to African skin, we hardly get to African culture. So then we created a platform that allows creatives to come online and get these images for free. So the main aim was for if creatives were like an opportunity to design flyers that can race. So I am from Nigeria. Before then, you can see an entire B board, or you see an entire B, but you see it's a white man there, or you see a flyer,

Pivot Story From Stock Photos

smeen Haruna 16:57

you see mostly are white people, but the people cannot connect to it. The designer doesn't have the tools to get that. So we created a platform where people could download these images because we had like a studio where we took pictures of people in different poses and uploaded it for line for Africa to use. So it's a good venture. Um, we got into a VC firm, uh, into a VC integrator program in the Netherlands. Then we were going, going, going, then AI came. So remember what AI came, what we are building was redundant because whatever we do, AI can do it 10 times cheaper and 10 times smarter. So our production process was quite difficult. We had to get um people in the studio, take pictures, upload online, make some edits. But with AI, you can just prompt it. So it actually made that business absolute. So we have to close down shop. And thank God we're not collecting money, we didn't raise money, so we close down without having to deal with some financial stress or some law cases. We just close down because we didn't raise anybody. Customers that subscribe to our platform, we pay them off. It's okay. This is not going forward. We have to just pay you off from the money you paid us because it's not sustainable because of right over here. Then we we came up with an idea, of course. Like, since all of us are unlike artists, I I am an animator, I played carton. My colleague is an illustrator, she draws. My also my other um colleague is an animator, too. So we came up with this brilliant idea because we both of us, the three of two of us are boss for the largest educational company, tech company in Africa. And I think the third, the fifth largest in the world called ULessing Group. So we had this solid foundation of animation and storytelling. So we came up with a brilliant idea. Okay, how can we turn this skill because we know AI should be a part of this? How can we turn this skill and infuse with what we have with AI? Then we came up with our 2070 series. So basically, we help companies or individuals to children's secure products, create ads, and also create content for the advertisement. I love your question.

Dr Ariel R King 19:16

It sounds like everything was quick, but I don't think it was. So, can you give us an understanding of more of the time period and also it I love the fact that you and your team, your colleagues were able to shift? And is that a result you think of being younger and um maybe not, but also having your finger on the pulse of what's going on online?

smeen Haruna 19:39

I think uh would I say we so we have this system, and I'm just sharing this system with you when we came into the when we came into the same, we promised ourselves that we will not we will not buy our own story. Sorry, we will not buy our own story, so you make sure that we're driven by data, not by emotion, not by vision, not by we can do it data, and from the data we had shows that whatever we're doing, AI should be involved, it should be AI because it cost cost it cut down cost. So, and when the shift came, we had a meeting and we discussed it. And I can say because we are young, because but I don't think none of us is married, so we can switch without thinking about paying the bills. And the good thing is that we actually have a lot of buffer because we have like a limited, and the advantage again I will say again, because most of our clients are from the US and we are in Nigeria, so that exchange rate we have gives us what I say an edge over other people. So imagine I pay rent once. Well, someone in the US pay rent monthly.

Dr Ariel R King 20:59

Yeah, so if if I collect so you're saying you pay when once a year and most of us pay monthly, so somehow it gives you an economic space that also gives you an intellectual and an experience space in order to develop. Is that correct?

smeen Haruna 21:17

Yes, so it gives me number one, when it comes to business side, I can bid for clients, though if someone in the US offers, will definitely will not charge what I'm charging because my will be quite cheaper because of the cost of production. So even though some subscriptions online in Africa it tends to be cheaper. Like next, let me give you a Netflix in the US and Netflix in Nigeria are walls apart.

Pricing Consistency And Social Algorithms

smeen Haruna 21:42

In Nigeria, I think there's one for 2000 naira, and 2,000 naira is like I think three dollars or two dollars. So you can imagine how minute is. So when it comes to the production, I can create and keep in mind while if you can check our rest of our good, but not just cheap, but very good because this is what we have enough time.

Dr Ariel R King 22:07

Of course, I mean that's the standards are always there, of course.

smeen Haruna 22:10

Yeah, so a good so if you're a business, you just compare contrast. I'll take I'll go with these guys, it's quite cheaper, but that doesn't mean we're that cheap because at least we have like a standard we can go below.

Dr Ariel R King 22:23

Of course, yeah, I think that's so important. I think that's so important. I and I know that in Asia it's the same, and I've I've seen the difference in prices depending on what you're getting in one country versus another. As someone who's lived in several countries, so I see that the

smeen Haruna 22:37

a big difference tell me how long has your colleagues in you how long have your business been going and what are your what are you looking at to do in the future okay i think so we the the current business we are running I think is about a year and what we are trying to achieve for now is that we're trying to ensure we're trying to make it easy for our clients to create engaging realistic content without breaking the bank and without being stressed and without without being will I say on the edge because most of I think my colleague of a colleague of mine is a customer success officer in our previous piece of work. So we're trying to make it easier for you to create content for mid-level businesses. That's businesses that have an annual revenue of I think $5000 to million dollars total directly bank. So our subscription base quite well I say affordable compared to where I think we have $5,000 for a month's content. So you get two videos and you get so you get four videos that's each for every week and you get static um ads ads to for every day. So it gives your your social media page content for every day of the every day of the week and one thing with social media content is that at the end of the day the more you put out the more people know about you. So someone that is producing 10 content in a day and someone that's producing one content in a day will not be on the same level when it comes to algorithm. So the social media itself likes people to be engaging not that you post and you just lose the page so it wants you to engage. So we also have people do that too and create content for so that they can post consistently without stressing so they can focus on doing the business itself not creating control.

Dr Ariel R King 24:43

That makes such a big difference and I I remember you saying that there was a time that you and your colleague were also working for a very big educational system. So do you think that the venture of AI and art and is going to make these departments that usually have animation and so obsolete? I mean do you think that what is going to be the role of those who are the creative people like yourself who are cartoonists those who are maybe visual artists those who are even architects when it comes to the new use of AI okay so when AI was coming up and we had a conversation with my colleagues I was telling them that you are failing to look at the bigger picture.

smeen Haruna 25:29

So let me give it a scenario right I'm an animator and I'm in Nigeria and Nigeria we speak English. So let me say with AI I can create content. Let me say I'm that good let me just in the impossible

AI As A Tool To Expand Markets

smeen Haruna 25:47

I'm that good and I I have well I say have all the customers in Africa that speak English all the customers in Africa that speak English are my clients right with AI I can increase that number so basically English is not the most spoken language in in Africa we have Swali and Arab. So with AI I can also further my market and create content for Swahili content for Arabic so AI itself is a tool that will make you earn more if you adapt to it so if you are well I say servicing or your you have four clients with AI if you're charging them a thousand dollars you can just cut down the cost to 800 800 then increase the number of clients because AI will make your workflow easier and once you double that double your revenue so AI will allow you to take more clients that's if you choose to if you choose to use it so it all depends on the individual I know some artists are quite discouraged using AI but to be honest as I will say here AI at it as it's tail end is just a tool it's like when normal traditional drawing moves to digital and now I'm looking fantastic it's just a tool no matter how good you are if I give you an AI tool to use if you don't know the basic of animation you won't be able to create something that's a crap but me as an animator with my background and my experience if I create it if I create it you'll like it because I have the experience.

Dr Ariel R King 27:33

I love that and thank you and that that really helps me then understand that there's a partnership with with artificial intelligence and artificial and human intelligence. And even more importantly I think that we as people have the cultural understanding and background and the ethical and cultural that belongs to a particular culture right because you think you could also do it for English you can also do it for Swahili it's also possible to do for Arabic.

smeen Haruna 28:02

Well we have literally less than one minute left would you like to leave our audience with some uh tips about AI and also about how to get in touch with your business okay so I uh this is like like an advice or a plea whatever you're doing I know it sounds so so well like say daunting where once you're learning a new tool you hear that's a new tool again there's a new tool again

Practical Advice And How To Connect

smeen Haruna 28:27

so I'll advise anybody whatever the least you can do is learn chat whatever you're doing now you will if you include AI in it it helps your business if you are journalist if you are a cook whatever you think you're doing AI can actually help you help you in your production or can help you be better and as for reaching my business you can reach out to us on www.house2070 series.com or you can just um reach out to me um LinkedIn Eastern Haruna and we'll sure get you started I want to thank you for an amazing amazing podcast today I've learned so much for our audience remember if I'm not for myself who will be for me if I'm only for myself what am I if not now then when that was by Hillel and I have added if not me then who?

Dr Ariel R King 29:21

Thank you so much for joining us