by Arthur Goldstuck (@art2gee) There is no better indication of what consumers are doing on their smartphones than the apps they most commonly download — and social media, games and fitness dominate the app stores of three of the major smartphone platforms in South Africa.
Tag archives: social media
Crowd-mapping helping to save vultures in Namibia
by Russell Southwood (@BalancingActAfr) In this video interview, Joris Komen, an education and environment innovator based in Namibia, discusses his work using Ushahidi crowd-mapping in conjunction with social media to reduce the number of vultures being poisoned as a result of poaching in southern Africa.
Africa Style: Social and the lost art of conversation
by Masingita Mazibuko. How does a brand get noticed in a world where people are swamped by stimuli or, in another, where they have opted not to engage with devices and the media that they deliver?
Ads and media tweets
by Herman Manson (@marklives) Not an awful lot seems to have been written about sponsored tweets making their way into the Twitter feeds of media organisations or journalists until a mini blowout early last year.
The Ad Contrarian: Social media and the end of the brand ‘conversation’
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian). Marketers they are abandoning the “permission model” and reverting to the “interruption model” in their online advertising.
The Ad Contrarian: Slow, painful collapse of the social media fantasy
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) While advocates for social media still cling to the wreckage of “the conversation” and continue to hound us with apocryphal tales of social media magic, dispassionate observers are starting to realise what a delusion the whole theory of social media marketing has been.
The Ad Contrarian: Why social channels are cloning television in 2014
by Bob Hoffman (@adcontrarian) Last year, Facebook pretty much abandoned the fantasy and got into the interruption model big time. Great big traditional ads started appearing in our streams. Facebook still has pretensions of social media, but it’s pretty clear what it really is — a social media channel with traditional advertising plastered all over it.
Smart Africa TV: Guinness Africa on how it uses social media in Africa
by Russell Southwood (@BalancingActAfr) In this interview, Ross Haddow, brand manager — PR and Digital at Guinness Africa, talks about how the company uses social media; the size of its Guinness VIP platform; the increase in its digital advertising spend; and how he sees the future of social media in Africa.
For marketers, a new way to reach social influencers
by Herman Manson (@marklives) South African start-up Webfluential hopes to standardise business practices and offer transparent and accurate data on online influencers whom brand communicators can access, with a fair degree of certainty.
Tech Law: Digital strategists’ glaring blindspot
by Paul Jacobson (@pauljacobson) Strategy in the digital marketing space fascinates me and what I’ve noticed is that digital marketing strategists have a glaring blindspot — they don’t factor structured legal and compliance risks into their planning and modelling. I imagine there are many reasons for this, which likely include strategists’ ignorance of what these risks are and that they may even find the frameworks designed to address them intimidating or downright inscrutable.