Self-regulate. Self-moderate. Are terms that are cropping up more and more in my vocabulary. It’s advice to clients. It’s advice to peers (who ask for it) It’s mostly advice to myself.
My personal approach on Social media is that I don’t comment on client related content or promotion unless I disclose that its client work. The reason, because I don’t and won’t suggest or promote something to my followers or friends unless I legitimately want to support it. And if its client work then I feel that they/you should know that.
Last year I got into trouble for doing just that. And its because it appeared that we were the only agency producing the work. So I removed the tweet and all was well. But it meant that I couldn’t even do that.
Then today standing in the queue at the bank, I noticed, again, the remarkable misrepresentation of “the world” about to descend on South Africa for the world cup in their murals. Even the teller confirmed that he thought it was all very white. Very odd. I took a photo. I was a moment away from criticising the creative, and then a little voice cautioned me against it. Why? Because its your client. And I don’t want it to seem that I’m criticising your client’s work, when I work on a banking client too. Which means I can’t talk about my banking client either. And the other major bank out there, I don’t think knows how to spell Twitter, so there is no point complaining about them anyway.
On that. Nobody likes a complainer. I learnt a long time ago, that as much as I sometimes want to be honest, that its best to keep upbeat in this medium. I unfollow people who complain too much. No matter how ‘influential’ people are meant to be. I hide people’s comments in facebook when they are too depressing or emo. My most used word in my tweets last year was ‘love’, and I like that. I’m sure that I get unfollowed, often, for my ‘purges’ which usually occur whilst I am waiting. Waiting for the menu. Waiting for my order. Waiting in the queue. Waiting for a video to load. Waiting for the kettle to boil. “Tweet while you wait.” (Hmm would make for a nice service campaign for a retailer, ‘tweet if you have waited in this queue for longer than 5 mins’) But I try not to complain. Which means that I’m not objective or honest in my complaints about issues that aggravate me as a consumer. And that’s largely because they are probably your client. Or mine.
Latest Twitter Stats in SA, argued and agreed upon by the top dogs sits at 88 000 users. I’d like to know what the average number of followers is for each of the 88 000. I hazard a guess that the majority of Twitterati with the largest number of followers and arguable influence are in actual fact in ‘The Industry’, particularly in SA. Which means that they can’t be objective I even wonder about Radio DJ’s with a large reach. What of their sponsors – how objective are they, really? How dare they, we, criticise or comment on a brand? Heaven help if you are up for pitch and client sees your thoughts. Eeek. Or maybe you’re just gutsy enough not to care?!
Where is the line between being a regular opinionated consumer and protecting your business interests? Mine, after testing all routes and as I become more engrained in brand work, is to self-regulate, self-moderate when I want to complain. And provide positive commentary where and when deserved.
It was fantastic to be approached by Content Marketing thoughtleader, Joe Pulizzi of Junta 42 to contribute to his collation of social media and content marketing predictions for 2010. The Question: What is your prediction for how brand marketers will create and distribute their own content in 2010? And my Answer: “Its my sentiment that in 2010, brand and business leaders, rather than just marketers, will start paying more attention to content. Strategically they will consider investing in and employing effort and resources into building that brand’s very own content management system. A silo if you will, of content that is sourced from various divisions and filtered to internal and external publishing platforms required or selected by various departments, one of them, being marketing.” Read more…
The Silicon Cape vision is of an ecosystem in the Western Cape of South Africa, that serves to attract and bring together local and foreign investors, the brightest technical talent, and the most promising entrepreneurs, to foster the creation and growth of world-class IP start-up companies in an environment that competes with other similar hubs around the world against the backdrop of one of the most beautiful settings and pleasant places to live, work and play on the globe. This is a quick overview video on what happened at the launch of the Silicon Cape Initiative.
The Silicon Cape launch event starts bright and early tomorrow morning. Zoopy will be filming and publishing content (available early next week) on the dedicated Silicon Cape channel.
We have already enjoyed (particularly from the #cynicalcape) discussion and debate surrounding the initiative. If you are unable to attend and have a question that could be included in the interviews with the speakers: MC Matthew Buckland, Premier Helen Zille, Justin Stanford, Vinny Lingham, Dr Mamphele Ramphele, Andrea Bohmert Laurence Olivier and Johann Rupert, please leave a comment on this post.
It seems a little silly to write this post two weeks ahead of Mobile Web Africa, where guaranteed more will be explored, but I’ve been navigating in the mobile space for a while and thought I’d share a few of my discoveries.
First up in the Mobile Marketing Space, is Infinit – the work of Rowan Polovin and Tristan Owen of MEDIAS, infinit.mobi is one of SA’s video to mobile products. Launched in July this year, it is fast becoming a great solution for marketers and content owners who want to get their video (read: quality video) on mobile. For users, infinit.mobi enables them to download and watch free and paid video content. I was with Henk Kleynhans of Skyrove when he testdrove it, and his immediate response was how clever the payment system was, which allows for easy subscription or once-off purchases of videos, billable from a mobile user’s airtime. Tristan and Rowan’s efforts are evident when you acknowledge the depth they have gone to, to ensure that it has been designed to be compatible with most mobile phones. When asked if he worked most weekends, Rowan’s answer “Weekends, what’s that?”
Then we have the effort and hard work of Angus Robinson and his team at Brandsh. They have created a content management system for Mxit. Yes, in their portals Mxit can manage content but Brandsh has come along and created a great tool called BM2 that enables and is able to put your content on steroids within Mxit. The reasons, because there is dedicated development, its quicker and you can manage the content remotely. They have created tools/functions/games and more appropriate to the audience on Mxit that are worth investigating more. If you’re looking to engage with this audience and continuously publish content within Mxit, this CMS may be the solution for you.
Remember “Mobile marketing is a journey, not a campaign” Angus Robinson.
This time last year I was lucky enough to attend the Handheld Learning Conference in London and got a frightening glimpse into what is possible in, or is it on? mobile for education.
Its great to see SA based projects gaining traction and attention and smartlearner.mobi is one of them, launched by Steve Vosloo of the Shuttleworth Foundation. Last week saw the introduction of Kontax, the world’s first English and isiXhosa m-novel, also part of the M4-Lit Project, project managed by Steve. Released on a chapter by chapter basis the story created by mobilist Sam Wilson follows the adventures of a group of teenage graffiti artists. The objective of M4Lit is to explore the potential of increasing youth literacy using mobile as the obvious medium.
A taste. Enjoy.
