Facebook is hiring a small team of journalists to help curate breaking news and repair its strained relationship with news publishers, the social media giant announced Tuesday. 



The company says it will employ journalists to select breaking news and top stories that will appear in its soon-to-be-launched feature called News Tab, rather than using algorithms to determine what is shared with its vast network of users.



With the move, Facebook is part of a growing trend in the tech industry. Apple, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn and Snapchat have all employed journalists to help their companies sort through the news and cozy up to news organizations.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Facebook Recommits To A More Personalized Dating App, Your Privacy (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/05/02/facebook-recommits-to-a-more-personalized-dating-app-your-privacy/" target="_blank">Facebook Recommits To A More Personalized Dating App, Your Privacy</a>



Apple, for example, has used some form of human curation since its subscription Apple News app launched in 2015. In June 2017, the company hired former New York magazine executive editor Lauren Kern as the app’s editor-in-chief. Twitter has also employed some form of human news curation since 2015. 



Even with a team of in-house journalists, companies like Twitter continue to struggle in the fight against misinformation. On Monday, Twitter announcedit will no longer accept advertising from state-controlled media, in large part as a response to the discovery that China ran a misinformation campaign to combat Hong Kong protesters. 



Facebook, facing similar scrutiny for the same Chinese misinformation campaign, said that employing journalists will help “surface more high quality news.”



“Our goal with the News tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships said in a statement sent to Forbes. “The majority of stories people will see will appear in the tab via algorithmic selection. To start, for the Top News section of the tab we’re pulling together a small team of journalists to ensure we’re highlighting the right stories.”



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/28/google-facebook-twitter-fail-to-live-up-to-fake-news-pledge/" target="_blank">Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge</a>



Facebook says the team will take into account user controls, pages and publisher as well as the news that users interact with or share,&nbsp;and other unnamed signals from its vast network to personalize content.&nbsp;



The company has been under pressure to mitigate its misinformation problem since it was revealed in 2016 that Russian operatives carried out a misinformation campaign in a “sweeping and systematic fashion” on the network, as it was described by special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.



The Mueller Report found that Russia spent $1.25 million per month on digital advertisements in an effort to sow discord in the U.S. and influence the presidential election. On Monday, Facebook came under fire for taking money from China to spread disinformation about Hong Kong protests.



The social media giant remains an important part of many Americans lives, much more than its rivals Twitter and Snapchat. According to Pew Research, about 69% of American adults use Facebook, and of those who use it, about 74% visit the site once a day. By comparison, only one in five U.S. adults (22%) use Twitter.



According to a survey conducted in 2018, about four in ten (43%) U.S. adults get at least some news from Facebook.



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="How To Use Twitter To  Boost Your Business (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/09/22/use-twitter-boost-business/" target="_blank">How To Use Twitter To  Boost Your Business</a>



In January 2017, Facebook hired Campbell Brown, a former television news anchor, to lead its news partnerships team. She remains a key figure in easing the tension between large national news outlets—those who have historically provided an endless trove of free content for the social media giant—and the company.



Publishing executives have slammed Facebook for siphoning advertising revenue away from traditional news publishers while also demanding that those same companies provide content for free. Following years of backlash, the social media company is now trying to work with publishers to create a more even relationship.



Facebook’s news partnership program involves deals that are potentially worth millions of dollars. The Wall Street Journal reports that several news outlets including the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and the New York Times have discussed receiving as much as $3 million per year to license news content.



The News Tab, which has not been publicly viewed, is being positioned in stark contrast to the company’s Trending Topics news section, which shut down in 2016 following increasing pressure from users.



In 2016, the tech website Gizmodo published an article alleging contractors hired to curate the now-defunct Trending Topics feed were actively suppressing conservative news stories. In a letter to Congress, Facebook said, “We could not reconstruct reliable data logs from before December 2014, so were unable to examine each of the reviewer decisions from that period,” thus suggesting that it may have very well suppressed conservative news when the tool first launched.



-Michael Nuñez; Forbes

gettyimages-904274222-170667a

Facebook Joins Other Tech Giants In Employing Journalists To Curate News

Many perspectives have been shared on influencer marketing, but very few from the brands themselves. What are its business imperatives and ROI?



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



In the heart of Sandton, Africa’s richest square mile, is
Brittany Preece, a social media manager at Investec Bank. 



As part of the Private Banking marketing team, Preece and
her team have managed to successfully implement disruptive digital strategies
to meet the growth objectives of the bank. 



Traditionally, the role of marketing has been to support business objectives. Yet when companies experience financial difficulty, more often than not, marketing is seen to be the first in line on the chopping block. As a way of adapting to this reality, most marketing managers have had to look at cost-effective, yet creative, ways of achieving business impact.



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/investment/2019/05/14/how-cryptocurrency-scams-work/">How Cryptocurrency Scams Work</a>



Social and digital media have given room for new ways
businesses can engage and sell to their customers. 



Increasingly gaining traction in South Africa is influencer
marketing, an entirely new branch of the sales and marketing funnel which has
seen brands leverage popular personalities on social media to promote their
products and services online. Globally, the influencer marketing industry is
forecast to be worth $5 billion to $10 billion by 2020, according to a study by
Mediakix.



For Investec, attracting and diversifying into new markets
has informed their decision to leverage influencers as part of their marketing
strategy. 



“Since 2015, we as Investec, have predominantly used influencer marketing to reach the young professional audience,” Preece says. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/current-affairs/2019/02/28/google-facebook-twitter-fail-to-live-up-to-fake-news-pledge/" target="_blank">Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge</a>



“We (Investec Private Bank) have recently evolved our
qualifying criteria. We’re no longer just the preferred banking partner for
accountants, engineers, lawyers, doctors and actuaries. We’re positioned to be
the bank of choice for those who are under the age of 30, consistently earning
more than R600,000 ($42,582)a year, with a university degree and working in
their area of expertise.” 



Seated in front of a glass wall which looks out to a view of
a bustling and upbeat office environment, she elaborates that to effectively
reach the young professionals’ target market, it is important to identify
individuals that can speak to that audience. 



“What influencer marketing gives you, that a lot of the other marketing channels can’t, is great reach and engagement with your target audience. Using [influencers] brings a lot of authenticity to the brand, where Investec Private Banking was seen as unattainable to a lot of young professionals,” Preece says. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Facebook Recommits To A More Personalized Dating App, Your Privacy (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/05/02/facebook-recommits-to-a-more-personalized-dating-app-your-privacy/" target="_blank">Facebook Recommits To A More Personalized Dating App, Your Privacy</a>



In the digital universe, content is king. Authenticity is
paramount. A study conducted by the Mobile Marketing Association reported that
most consumers have banner blindness and suffer from advertising fatigue. They
cannot recall the last digital banner ad that they saw. 



Ad-blocking continues to be a growing phenomenon, further
demonstrating the shift in consumer behavior. Consumers simply don’t want to be
marketed to. To this effect, influencers assist brands to reach their customers
through content that is more relevant to those consumers.



According to Business Insider’s 2018 Influencer Marketing
Report: Research, Strategy &amp; Platforms for Leveraging Social Media
Influencers, the average social media engagement rate from influencer marketing
averages 5.7% per post. 



This is a feat compared to content generated by brands which
fluctuates around 2% – 3% per post. 



With this in mind, it’s even more essential for brands to
involve influencers upfront to co-create an envisioned campaign. 



“You want your influencer to buy into what you stand for as a brand. It shouldn’t be a hard sell – consumers see through that. If not done properly, it can look very fake and [we] never want to make it feel like an ad,” Preece says. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Crazy Aviators: The Eerie Similarities Between Billionaire Howard Hughes And Elon Musk (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2019/04/06/crazy-aviators-the-eerie-similarities-between-billionaire-howard-hughes-and-elon-musk/" target="_blank">Crazy Aviators: The Eerie Similarities Between Billionaire Howard Hughes And Elon Musk</a>



Brands and agencies measure awareness and engagement by
analyzing a few parameters, including, inter alia, number of likes, comments,
shares and followers. Proponents of this theory believe an increase in these
parameters lead to brand success. 



Detractors of the theory believe awareness and engagement
alone are not sufficient indicators of brand success. “Likes and follows are
unimpressive without an increase in the bottom line,” says Sinesipho Maninjwa,
a financial analyst and commentator. 



But technology has its limitations. Dianne Joseph, the
Commercial Director of Digital at Nielsen, a leading global information, data
and measurement company, elaborates that there are real challenges in measuring
sales attribution as a result of influencer marketing. 



“The influencer models are difficult to measure because most
influencers use their own personal pages to post, and these organic posts don’t
offer us the opportunity to implement a tag (for tracking purposes) and,
therefore, we aren’t able to track the outcomes,” Joseph says.



The ability to measure what is happening on and off digital
platforms, or across social media platforms, is a challenge that most digital
marketers face. Different platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have their own
unique methods of tracking and storing data. The link between these platforms
is, therefore, a lot more tenuous. 



But in support of influencer marketing, a number of global
studies have come out and shown that influencer marketing does yield a positive
return on investment (ROI). 



Pierre Cassuto, of social media influencer platform Humanz,
who recently set up shop in South Africa from Tel Aviv in Israel, believes that
the use of influencers can lead to increased sales. “In the US market, there is
about a four times ROI on money spent in the influencer marketing space for
retailers, cosmetics and FMCG brands,” he adds.



Cassuto agrees that engagement on its own doesn’t yield conversion. For influencer marketing to yield conversion, the message being broadcast by influencers has to be well thought out and carefully constructed to achieve that objective. 



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">There has to be a reason for someone to do something now as opposed to anytime. That can be around creating urgency around something specific, it can be around creating a limited time availability offer.</blockquote>



Essentially, brands can become creative and purposeful in
how they design their entire campaign to track conversion from the ground up.
“The way we suggest measuring conversion is by making sure that the influencers
have a way that [brands] can track the relationship between the influencers
post and the actual conversion,” Cassuto says.



The first looks at providing the influencer a coupon code
that they can distribute and share. In doing so, the specific brands will know
that the people who redeemed the coupon code came from the influencers. The
second options measures sell over time related to increase in traffic due to
influencer marketing towards a landing page that the brand is driving to. With
this, Cassuto states that brands can do A/B testing to see the impact on days
influencers are posting and days when they’re not. 



With all the advantages of influencer marketing, should
brands solely invest in this sales channel? 



Preece firmly holds the view that influencer marketing on
its own isn’t the be all and end all. “I do believe that it should be a mix. I
believe that an integrated marketing plan that uses out-of-home, billboards, TV
and digital is where you see the most results.”



“Things can go wrong with influencer marketing. You are
putting faith and trust into a human being who is imperfect. We have a saying:
A tweet can tank an economy,” Preece says.



With consumers becoming increasingly selective about what
they consume, influencer marketing continues to grow as an attractive sales
channel. It is imperative that brands place the necessary care and due
diligence before partnering with any influencer. 



The perfect fit between an influencer and the brand will
determine the overall ROI. After all, effective influencer marketing is the
online equivalent of the highly valuable word-of-mouth advertising that
marketers have always coveted.

gettyimages-981661932-170667a

‘A Tweet Can Tank An Economy’

Google, Facebook and Twitter have fallen short of their pledges to combat fake news, three months before key European elections, the European Commission said on Thursday.



The tech companies and trade bodies representing the advertising industry signed up to a voluntary code of conduct in October to tackle the spread of fake news, aiming to stave off more heavy-handed legislation.



Brussels is keen to address the threat of fake news or foreign interference during campaigning for the European Parliament elections in May and also for national elections in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine in the coming months.



Europe’s Security Commissioner Julian King criticized the lack of progress on cracking down on fake news made by the three companies based on their monthly reports.



“Sadly they have fallen further behind. They need to live up to the standards we are asking of them, and that they signed up to,” King said in a tweet.



Facebook has not provided details of its actions against political ads in January nor the number of fake accounts deleted due to malicious activities targeting the European Union, the Commission said.



The Commission also found that Google’s measures on political ads were not specific enough nor did the company clarify the extent to which its actions were taken to address fake news or other reasons. It did not provide concrete evidence to show that it had carried out its policies in January, the Commission said.



The EU executive also criticized Twitter for failing to provide benchmarks to measure its progress on monitoring political ads. -Reuters



&#8211; Foo Yun Chee

INDIA-US-INTERNET-FACEBOOK

Google, Facebook, Twitter Fail To Live Up To Fake News Pledge

The Instagram influencer marketing industry is expected to exceed $1 billion by the end of 2017, and more than double by 2019. A Santa Monica-based influencer marketing industry Mediakix forecast these figures by studying the #spon #sp and #ad hashtags on the platform, which saw over 9.7 million posts tagged in 2016, with 14.5 million expected for 2017.
While South Africa may be late to the party for most things digital, there are a fair amount of influencers making waves locally. No matter the niche, there are bloggers and influencers who, through their combined digital platforms, are regarded just as important as journalists when it comes to making an invite list; or taking part in a campaign best aligned with their brand. It is predominant with fashion, beauty and lifestyle bloggers in South Africa where some have quit their full-time jobs to focus on being an ‘influencer’.
<div id="attachment_34458" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34458" class=" wp-image-34458" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Aqeelah-Harron-Ally-200x300.jpg" alt="Aqeelah Harron Ally" width="300" height="450" />Aqeelah Harron Ally (Photo supplied)</div>
Aqeelah Harron Ally, a 27-year-old fashion, beauty, and travel blogger at <a href="http://fashionbreed.co.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FashionBreed</a>, from Cape Town, worked full-time for five years before quitting her job, and tells us she could have afforded to leave sooner, but didn’t have the courage.
Ally, who has been blogging for seven years, initially started her blog so she could work for a magazine to ultimately become a fashion editor. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film, Media &amp; Writing, and Drama from the University of Cape Town; and a Diploma in Make Up Artistry.
The decision to quit her job has worked out well for Ally, who says she is much happier now, even though being her own boss can be stressful at times.
“I’ve been lucky because for the last two years, I’ve landed many contracts which span over four, six, or even eight months; this helps a lot with stability, however I’m also fine without those kinds of jobs.”
She has other once-off campaigns that are booked a month or two in advance, and out of the events she attends, about 60% are paid attendance, which is generally tied to a campaign she is already creating content for.
“I seldom get paid just to attend an event and cover it, but I have done it in the past.”
Another digital content creator who quit her full-time job after five years is 26-year-old Anna-Belle Durrant from Parktown North in Johannesburg. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Philosophy from the University of the Witwatersrand. She started her blog <a href="https://shesaid.co.za/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SheSaid</a> back in 2013 initially to share her love for Johannesburg, but it has blossomed into stories about travel, fashion, healthy living and design.
“So far it’s worked out incredibly well; I love that I am the master of my own time and creations, and I’m still very fortunate to work closely with agencies like Cerebra [previous employer],” says Durrant.
To her, blogging is like freelancing; work comes in when it comes in and you just have to go with the flow. “However, I do work with brands on a retainer basis to create content around their offerings; and my campaigns run across all my social channels and blog. When you become a blogger, your mind-set changes completely, what you earn is in line with how much you work… so work hard and you should be ok,” she says.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/10/06/sharing-economy-400000-guests-home/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Sharing Economy: 400,000 Guests At Home</a>
However, the industry has been marred by a fake follower problem where users deceive brands into paying them for being an influencer. Mediakix ran an experiment on two accounts proving how easy it is by purchasing fake followers from as little as $3 for 1,000 followers and $4 for 1,000 likes. Once these accounts reached a threshold of 10,000 followers, they signed up for campaigns – and got accepted for two paying jobs each.
The onus of this falls on PR companies or marketing agencies who need to ensure they’ve done thorough research before approaching an influencer. A quick search on Memeburn.com for an article titled Fake followers are a massive problem, as SA duo proves shows the extent of it in South Africa.
Ally says what they’re doing is illegal.
“It is straight-up fraud because you’re telling a brand to pay you for something you can only pretend to offer. Buying followers is selfish and entitled, but more than anything it’s a charade they won’t be able to keep up with because there are so many tell-tale signs that reveal the cracks in the lie.”
<div id="attachment_34459" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34459" class=" wp-image-34459" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Anna-Belle-Durrant-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" />Anna-Belle Durrant (Photo supplied)</div>
Durrant on the other hand feels that while you can cheat anything in life, rather focus on your own content and what you need to do to build your brand as the truth always comes out in the end.
Both Ally and Durrant work extremely hard at being full-time bloggers and share similar sentiments that it’s not all freebies, fame, travel and parties. “You’re a stylist, photographer, writer, curator, art director, model, negotiator/businesswoman, social media manager, video maker; the ultimate definition of a jack-of-all-trades,” says Ally.
Durrant compares it to running a magazine that needs to be published constantly except she’s the CEO, photographer, stylist and janitor, all while fighting for invoices to be paid. “It’s a lifestyle of work hard, play hard.”
Ultimately, both find it very rewarding. For Ally, it’s all about the relationships with her readers, and stresses on how much she values it. “YouTube really extended my reach in this sense which has been so great. It’s also been rewarding growing as a content creator and actually getting paid for it. I’m really thankful for this because creatives don’t often get to say that. It’s really special being able to work for brands I grew up loving and respecting, even more so when their international teams fly to South Africa and get closely involved in what we do.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2017/07/11/workplace-future-now/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: The Workplace Of The Future &#8211; Or Now?</a>
Durrant loves that she gets to do things and go to places she could only have dreamed of.
“A highlight was exploring a music festival on the coast of Wales last year. Traveling makes me happy, I get to do that for my job; I honestly couldn’t ask for anything more. I also get to meet really incredible people and work with truly inspiring charities and brands, I have inspiration around me 24/7.” &#8211; Written by Nafisa Akabor

When It Pays To Be Online

Twitter is is a great platform for raising brand awareness and driving traffic to your business.
It can be used to increase sales and to improve your customers’ experience. Yet, there are a lot of businesses that have not yet taken advantage of Twitter to achieve their goals.
Twitter it is one of the best places to have conversations that support, educate, and delight people. It’s a place for authentic business interactions with clients.
Twitter never sleeps. It gives you access to what’s going on in your industry, community, and around the world every moment of every day. People go on Twitter to discover something new, which makes them open to interacting with businesses.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/technology/2017/08/11/seven-tips-mastering-marketing-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Seven Tips For Mastering Marketing On Facebook</a>
People often talk about the products they use on Twitter, so it’s a natural place to provide customer service. In fact, 85% of Twitter users say it&#8217;s important that businesses provide customer support on the social network. Twitter allows you to follow and interact with people outside of your personal network. It’s a great way of joining, or starting, discussions with influencers and industry experts to raise the profile of your business and build valuable connections.
Here are steps to set up a Twitter business profile:
Use a unique Twitter @name
Nothing expresses your brand on Twitter more than your account username, your @name is your unique identifier of your business on Twitter. It can contain up to 15 characters and should help people easily find your business.
Use your business’ name as the profile name and avoid using punctuation; it needs to be easy to find and type on devices. If your exact business name is not available, choose a similar name for consistency.
Your profile photo should represent your brand 
Your Twitter profile photo should probably be your company’s logo so people will instantly recognize your brand. Twitter uses your profile image to represent your account. Your profile picture shows the world who you are, and first impressions count. The image should showcase your best content and accurately sell your brand.
Choose a profile photo that visually represents your business or brand and fits well in a small space. This image isn’t just on your profile page; it is the icon in every Tweet you post.
The recommended image size for your profile pic is 400&#215;400 pixels; the image will be resized to fit.
Your bio must tell a story
Use your bio to explain what your business is about and what people can expect from your Twitter profile.
You have 160 characters to let people know what makes your business special, and why they need your products/services. Include useful information, such as what you tend to Tweet about, your location or business hours, and a link to your website. Use a unique link, so you can track visitors to your site from Twitter.
Jon Ferrara, the CEO of Nimble, says that Twitter marketers should make sure that their company’s identity and voice has great branding. It is important that the bio has a consistent tone so that other people can clearly understand what your company is about.
Your header image 
Your Twitter header image is a large background photo where you can tell a story about your business. It’s important that you use this to tell your business story as well.
Consider it a billboard for your company. You can use it to feature your products/services, or highlight your work and team. Change this image periodically to spotlight promotions, events, product news, or just keep things fresh. The recommended size for a Twitter header image is 1500&#215;500 pixels. On mobile, it’ll be cropped to a 2:1 aspect ratio.
Your pinned Tweet
Keep an important Tweet at the top of your timeline by pinning it there. Use this feature to make sure visitors to your profile can’t miss the biggest and latest news about your brand. &#8211; Written by Wale Bakare, Digital Marketer and Founder of www.webfala.com

Buy A Friend

How To Use Twitter To  Boost Your Business

You wake up each morning but before getting out of bed you’re already caught up with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. By the time you’ve reached the office, you know exactly what’s trending, which celeb made a faux pas, and what your virtual friends are wearing to work. Sound familiar?
According to the SA Social Media Landscape 2017 report issued by World Wide Worx and Ornico, there are 14 million South Africans on Facebook, 7.7 million on Twitter, 5.5 million on LinkedIn and 3.5 million on Instagram. It’s unclear how many are on Snapchat as users themselves don’t know what their follower count is; however, the last global estimate stood at 2% being South African.
Being on multiple social media platforms is the norm, but how has it changed our behavior? Gregory Eccles, a counselling psychologist practicing in Greenstone Hills, Johannesburg, says social media allows us to share far more of our lives with a large audience than we typically would have, creating opportunities for both greater inclusion of others in our lives, as well as for overshare or compromised privacy.
“Like any other communication tool, it gives us the power to affect change in our lives in good and bad ways, but it is our choice of how we use it that ultimately decides its impact,” says Eccles.
“It also allows us to indulge our inherent narcissism more fully than we otherwise may have been able, but those are desires that were there prior to social media.”
Saaleha Bamjee, a 33-year-old writer and photographer based in Johannesburg, who has since deleted her Snapchat account, says she used to catch up on the network in the mornings and evenings, and when not busy, in the afternoons.
“I joined out of a sense of FOMO [fear of missing out], and at first, followed the popular accounts,” she says. “It soon got tiresome, none of what people were sharing was of any value to me personally.”
There have been reports over the years of people going into debt to maintain an online presence and image, while a fair amount of ‘influencers’ overseas have quit Instagram altogether because they couldn’t keep up with the pressure of leading “fake” lives. Eccles says there is certainly pressure to maintain a certain type of social image, and the same applies to our social media presence.
“While some people may experience that pressure as quite overwhelming, it is ultimately still an action of choice for the most part as to how we present ourselves through social media.”
Bamjee says she made purchases on cosmetics and haircare appliances based on the recommendation of a local beauty blogger, while other purchases were tied to being a photographer.
“On Instagram, if I want to be hired or promote my services effectively, I have to upload quality images; this often involves shopping for food ingredients and props.”
Eccles thinks that social media doesn’t actively force us to make purchases. He says that the one aspect of social media when compared to other communication methods is that it allows us greater control over what we present, but we do not always take that into account when viewing posts from other people – an oversight which potentially mars our perspective of our status relative to others.
Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen an increase in new hardware such as better technology in smartphones like higher megapixels on the front-facing cameras, and 360-degree cameras, which Facebook has been supporting for quite some time now. These technologies enable us to share more than ever because it’s no longer just a photo; it’s now full-on livestreams through Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, and 360-degree photos and videos of every aspect of our lives.
While the availability of these sorts of tools can make it easier to indulge in our vices, Eccles maintains it is not the tools that are to blame.
“We need to look at our own motivations for why we use all of these tools the way we do, and think carefully about what other options we may have to achieve similar results (sense of social connection) and what the consequences of each method are.”
Eccles believes the problem is deeper than what it appears, and thinks that while consumer culture has an influence on our need to be connected all the time, the bigger influence are our own feelings of social connectedness or isolation.
“The truth is we all have a strong desire to connect socially with others, and social media is often the easiest way to do so. Unfortunately, our interactions through social media are quite superficial, forcing those who choose to fulfil their need for social interaction through social media to require more of it.”
Bamjee subsequently stopped following Snapchat accounts that had a “sameness” about it – a preoccupation with affluence and image.
“I soon realized that I didn’t want to see even more than what was already being shared on Facebook or Instagram. I missed having a conversation where I could ask ‘hey, what’s new’ and actually hear something I hadn’t known about previously.”
Perhaps it is time to re-evaluate our reasons for being on social media and the behavior it dictates. “We have a common urge to place blame outside ourselves – Facebook does this to us or smartphones do this to us, but while they often make it easier to behave in ways that may not be particularly healthy, such as ignoring the outside world in favour of spending all your time on your phone, we cannot ignore our own agency in all of this,” concludes Eccles.
While her time is still being monopolised by other social media platforms, Bamjee says she is happier in the sense that she no longer feels she has to know what’s going on with everyone all the time.

shutterstock_520529596

The Social Media Disconnect

The first thing you notice at Imgur’s new San Francisco office are the giraffes. They’re everywhere: inflatable giraffes, posters of kissing giraffes, a massive mural of a giraffe donning a monocle and top hat. “That’s our mascot, Imgurafe,” says 27-year-old founder and CEO Alan Schaaf. “It started as an April Fool’s joke when we added a giraffe theme to the site for a day and got e-mails for six months begging us to bring it back.”
For Imgur—the Web host of most of the Internet’s memes, GIFs, jokes and tropes—the giraffe is a perfect mascot: strange, awkward and huge. Each month Imgur (pronounced “imager”) attracts more than 150 million unique visitors, more than 5.5 billion page views and 45 million new images. Since 2009, when Schaaf built the site in his Ohio University dorm, Imgur has become the default launchpad where content is uploaded before blasting off across Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and the blogosphere.
But Imgur is increasingly shifting from being an image host to a prime destination of its own.
Roughly 30% of its audience (largely young and geeky) now views content directly on the Imgur home page and mobile app.
That trend helped Schaaf raise $40 million from the venture capitalists at Andreessen Horowitz in April 2014, after bootstrapping the site for its first five years. “It’s an incredible community,” says Andreessen partner Lars Dalgaard.
“Users are building meaningful relationships with people they might not ever see and are finding people that they have more in common with than anyone at work or school.”
Imgur now has to start making real money of all that traffic while dealing with a social network unlike Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
Imgur’s content isn’t shaped by friends or follows. Everyone sees the same images on the home page, ranked by popular vote. Top posts can get thousands of comments and tens of thousands of votes. “Imgur is a shared experience,” says Schaaf. “I don’t see posts because I follow a certain person but because it was voted up through a democracy.”
Navigating the site feels like channel surfing on public access television: a GIF of a bear playing in hay; a tutorial on how to use a battery and gum wrapper to start a campfire; a visual story of how one Imgur user helped another Photoshop away surgical stitches in a photo of her grandfather. “It’s impossible to go on Imgur for less than five minutes,” says Schaaf. “It’s true discovery. You start without wanting to see something in particular but find stuff you like every single time.”
Schaaf knows what the Imgur horde loves because he is one of them. As a shy and introverted kid growing up outside of Tampa, Fla., he moved to Ohio at age 10 and found his community on Web forums for games such as World of Warcraft. In high school he helped run the student IT support team and the school’s website.
As a computer science major at Ohio University he got into college radio, hosting a tech talk show and spinning electronic music: “I like to sit in my room, and I communicate out.”
Around this time he got heavily involved in another platform—the massive Web bulletin board Reddit. He loved the site but hated the tedious process of uploading images.
“It wasn’t Reddit’s problem but the Internet’s problem,” says Schaaf. “I thought, ‘I can do better.’” Schaaf, at the time a college junior, built an upload tool in two months. It was simple and sparse and could turn pictures into Web links with the press of a button. He shared his project with Reddit. It took off – and crashed. He moved to a larger Web-hosting service – it crashed that, too. He burned through four server sites before eventually turning it over to Amazon Web Services. “I had no experience handling traffic, but I had to learn. If I didn’t fix it then, Imgur wouldn’t exist,” says Schaaf, who credits Imgur’s survival on the self-reliance he had learned from his mom, Jean Hoyt. “She built her own company [real estate appraisal], and when something breaks in the house, like, ‘We need a new toilet,’ she installs it.”
Small ads on Imgur covered server fees and the occasional pizza through graduation. Schaaf shrugged off job offers from Facebook and Google to move home and run Imgur out of his bedroom. By 2010 Schaaf was making enough to rent an apartment and hire Matt Strader (an M.B.A. student whom Schaaf met through an Ohio University investment fund) to focus on the business side. In 2011, with Imgur getting 30 million monthly uniques, Schaaf and Strader (now Imgur’s COO) moved to San Francisco and hired four employees.
That number has grown to 45 since the $40 million venture round last spring. Schaaf says he’ll hit 90 employees by the end of the year as Imgur attracts a more mainstream audience through its new iOS app, launched in March.
Plans are afoot to jump to Web-connected TVs.
Says Andreessen Horowitz’s Lars Dalgaard: “This is amazing content that is not being seen by even a percent of the people who’d be elated and ecstatic if they knew it existed.”
The bulk of Imgur’s revenue today comes from the single ad on each page. To fuel more growth, Imgur is building an in-house agency that will create and publish branded images, so-called native ads, designed for viral sharing. Schaaf says these ads will mesh with the style and tastes of the site. Test campaigns for films and games (Grand Theft Auto V) were a hit with users, with some ads getting liked and shared by an average of 4% of the audience. Imgur must tread lightly. Online clans, especially those emboldened by their anonymity, can protest viciously about commercials in their feeds. “The most valuable thing about Imgur is the community,” says Schaaf. “Only we can take the community away.”

The Anti-Social Network

Politics is a dirty game, but when gender becomes part of the mudslinging, there is a dangerous detraction that muddies political waters, especially at a time when South Africa should be building on its 20 years of democracy.
While women’s participation in politics in South Africa may rank among the highest in the world, there is disparity between the way female politicians are treated in relation to their male counterparts. Politics allows an attitude of permissiveness, where sexist insults and criticism are par for the course in the cutthroat, survival-of-the-fittest political game. It is almost as if so long as you decry rape and violence against women, most other gender-based barbs, quips and caricaturizations sneak by the green light.
Recent media articles, debates and Twitter trends have trained a sharp spotlight on how 20 years into democracy, gender issues continue to be entwined with issues of race, class, lingering social division and double standards. It is this complexity that is at the heart of the matter.
FORBES WOMAN AFRICA spoke to three prominent South African politicians about how much of the glass ceiling they have smashed. While the positions they hold shape critical agendas, female politicians are routinely name-called, even by each other.
Why does the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) not believe it can put forward a female presidential candidate and why does Twitter trend because of an MP’s dress?
Helen Zille
Democratic Alliance (DA)
As head of the opposition, Zille is no stranger to dishing out criticism or taking it. She believes strong women leaders – the DA’s top three are women – are comfortable and confident to lead.
What concerns the Western Cape Premier, though, is that the hostile arena of politics dissuades other women from entering the fray. “I fear many women feel inhibited from assuming leadership roles because of the abuse and invective they face in the public square,” she says. And the invective that circulates is not for the faint-hearted. Former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leaders Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu have openly passed comments about her, which Malema has later defended as part of “public debate”.
“Persons guilty of sexist behavior should be named and shamed. There is no place for such behavior in our society. But, we need to address the underlying causes of sexism, which begins in the family and in communities,” she says.
Zille came under fire earlier this year following a public spat with DA Youth leader Mbali Ntuli, who criticized the DA’s march on the ANC headquarters during a jobs march. Zille called Ntuli a “princess” and “prima donna”, but she says: “I was describing indulgent and petulant behavior. My response would have been equally robust if it was directed at a man.”
Zille cautions that gender issues can become media fodder and headline grabbers. It can take away the focus that recognizes the strides women have made.
Mamphela Ramphele
Agang
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-6106" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-024-025-Elections-003-207x300.jpg" alt="" width="207" height="300" />
Mamphela Ramphele’s entry into the political arena as leader of Agang last year was bound to see daggers drawn. She was not surprised, but is disappointed at how a woman in power still unsettles many men.
“The more women succeed, the more many insecure men feel threatened. Women remain ‘out of place’ as leaders in male-dominated societies and it is not in politics alone,” she says.
It was Ramphele’s peck on the lips with the DA’s Zille, in their short-lived political partnership earlier this year that took on all kinds of sexualized caricaturization. It shifted from jokes and the material of satirists to become crass, cringe-worthy and below the belt – all with sexist overtones. She puts it down to media’s inability to move forward or to look at the deeper context surrounding issues of sexism in society. For Ramphele, it means the debate must move forward and beyond gender as seen in isolation from other issues that threaten freedom. It is the role of media, business, those in education and female leaders to use their power more definitively. She insists South Africa is ready for a black female president, however, she is under no illusion that women in many sectors of society remain second-class citizens.
“For millions of our daughters, the notion of gender equality remains a distant dream in the daily battle just to stay alive. How can they see themselves as leaders? Yet women lead families and communities, providing the strength and stability (emotional, financial) for many. We need to find ways to empower women to lead in their communities and beyond,” says Ramphele.
Thandile Sunduza
African National Congress (ANC)
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-6105" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Apr-May-024-025-Elections-002-207x300.jpg" alt="" width="207" height="300" />
“Maybe if I wasn’t pregnant I would have just been able to make a joke about the tweets, but why is it not okay for big women to show off that they are pregnant. Why is big not a brand or sexy? We have many big African women in Parliament, but we play the culture card when it’s convenient for us,”
says Sunduza.
She says it was hurtful that it was mostly women, and black women in particular, who led the Twitter taunts.
“We have a pull-her-down mentality that shows we are still not liberated. When women don’t stand up for each other, we elevate the patriarchy that still exists in Africa.”
She takes a swipe at journalists who tweet before they think, egging each other on.
The damage was done in minutes.
“Of course we have freedom of expression in this country, but people need to think about other people’s dignity and rights,” she says.
Sunduza says a growing culture of mockery as acceptable behavior, be it gender-based or otherwise, is worrying.
“How many people were interested in the President’s State of the Nation speech, and how many more people were interested in my dress? What does it teach our young people? That’s sad [to] me,” she says.

‘Women Must  Stand Up For Each Other’

According to her Twitter profile Thando Hopa considers herself, “A down to Earth dreamer with her head in the clouds. A Modelling Prosecutor who sneaks in some poetry here and there. Neva a dull moment. lil too bright for that”.
Gert-Johan Coetzee, a South African fashion designer, was due to show his collection at Vancouver Fashion Week but was stuck in a rut. Hopa was just the inspiration he needed.
“As I walked past her, it was almost like a light was shining in my eyes from the side,” says Coetzee.
Hopa had turned down modeling offers before and was indifferent to this one, but took Coetzee’s business card with the promise to find out who he was. The rest, as they say, is history.
Before this, Hopa never considered modeling and never wanted anything to do with it. It was her sister’s words of encouragement shortly before her chance meeting with Coetzee that persuaded her to take his card.
Hopa grew up in Lenasia South and later moved to Walkerville, both situated in the south of Johannesburg. She attended the private St Martin’s High School and acquired an LLB from the University of Witwatersrand.
Two years later she became a prosecutor with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the youngest in her Johannesburg group of recruits. Hopa says her biggest challenge was not only to learn to deal with people, but also to set aside her prejudices and stereotypes.
Hopa has albinism, a genetic condition that results in a partial or complete lack of pigmentation in the skin, hair and eyes that affects one in 20,000 people worldwide. The prevalence is much higher in Africa, with an estimated one in 2,000 affected. A recessive gene needs to be present in both parents for their child to be born with albinism.
Hopa was four years old when her brother was also born with albinism. As one of four children, she recalls not being happy because she was used to special treatment and attention, which she had to suddenly share with him. Their bond was strengthened by their ability to relate to each other better than  their other family members simply because they faced the same problems. Hopa feels her presence made things, to some extent, a little easier for him but acknowledges that they had to face different social experiences.
Those with the condition are vulnerable to sun exposure and bright light, almost all people with albinism are visually impaired, and the majority are classified as legally blind.  Hopa is no exception. She is very short-sighted and has trouble seeing street signs, causing her to rely on cabs most of the time.
She had a very happy childhood and was protected from the sometimes cruel world by her family. She recalls the first time her difference was made obvious. The  first day of school provided more than just education for little Hopa. The other children refused to sit next to her or touch her.
“I never felt the burden of being different because every time I went home I was loved, and I never looked different from anyone else. That’s the way they treated me. I never actually saw color,” she says.
Hopa spent her adolescent years questioning beauty and trying to figure out where she fitted . There were no role models that looked like her; she felt she was too different to be beautiful.
“I found myself wanting. Because in terms of media, in terms of everything, the responses I got from friends, from guys, I just didn’t feel like I was beautiful,” she says.
It was only in her university days that Hopa decided to redefine beauty. The determined Hopa set out on a mission to look hot, by her own definition, every day and to work on her confidence. She says she went through many style phases, including rock and Rastafarian.
There is no contractual agreement between Hopa and Coetzee, following her entry into fashion. The two have a friendship that Hopa says was fortified by last year’s South Africa Fashion Week.
Two weeks after meeting Coetzee, Hopa was scheduled to walk in his show for the event as the face of his collection. The only problem was that Hopa didn’t know how to walk in heels. The designer gave her a pair and told her to practice. Hopa says this was an emotionally confusing time for her. Her biggest fear was falling, but she says the support from the team and her family cushioned her.
“Gert must have checked up on me a thousand times that day,” she laughs.
In the end, Hopa felt triumphant.
Hopa’s goal for her modeling career is to stop being uncomfortable with albinism and reject the superstition and prejudice around albinism. She says that people are either in awe or repelled by it.
“We just want to make it another shade of normal,” she says.
People with albinism face harsher circumstances and social experiences in Africa, most severely in east Africa. The persecution of people with albinism is based on the superstition that certain body parts of albinos have magical powers that bring prosperity, while another says they are cursed.
Albinos are abducted, mutilated and their body parts sold.
A report by Canadian charity organization, Under The Same Sun, for the United Nations states that there were 155 attacks, including deaths, documented in Africa between 2006 and 2012.
Hopa says the problem is cultural and that she’s never had to worry about her life  because she’s different. All she can do is deal with the social circumstances she’s used to and understands.
Albinism is not new to the international modeling industry; top models include Stephen Thompson, Diandra Forrest and Shaun Ross. The world’s first albino model was Connie Chiu from Hong Kong. She got her first big break with Jean Paul Gaultier in Paris.
Hopa is at ease in front of both the judge and the camera. Her two worlds do not demand too much to require her to choose. So in the meantime, Hopa will remain a prosecutor during the week and a model on weekends.
Hopa’s dignity is her greatest asset and that’s all the NPA asks of her.   FL

Thando Hopa

Fashion’s Legal Eagle

August is not the only space dominated by woman. Internationally, experts concur that social media and its expansion is driven by women. In fact, had social media been around in 1956, the August 9 nation-wide women’s march against the apartheid passbook laws would most probably have been organized and gained momentum from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
According to Hootsuite, more women use social media than men in North America, and with online dominance comes influence. In the ‘Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers’ list published by Forbes in the second quarter of 2013,
@AnnTran tops the list with 100,000 tweets. She blogs and tweets about travel and leisure, providing advice to her 326,000 plus Twitter followers.
It’s this strong social media dominance that gives women power to influence online opinion and also sees them driving online shopping.
As women tend to be the more social than men, they naturally gravitate towards platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which allows for engagement that could lead to business.
Pinterest—a social media platform that baffles most male minds—is dominated by female users, who make up over 90%. They pin anything from holiday plans, party ideas, wedding inspirations to the latest fashion accessories and even plan their events on this archive of virtual pinboards.
Mommy Blogs have become quite the online phenomenon, with 14% of American mom’s blogging according to US tax preparation company H&amp;R Block. Mothers-to-be, who are on maternity leave, or stay-at-home mothers have taken to the likes of Blogger and WordPress to share their experiences, tips and insights into being a mother. According to
Babble.com, Rebecca Wolf—a mother of four whose blog is called ‘Girls Gone Child’—tops the list of roughly 500 Mommy Blogs that have considerable power and reach.
As in the offline life, all is not roses and puppies. Because of their widespread online presence, women also suffer from the darker side of social media. It consists of girlfriend-spa-trip-envy, Twitter update jealousy and Instagram vanity. Age-old social pressures—now distributed across global social media platforms—may send some female users into a spiral of envy and depression, after they see a friends’ relationship status change to ‘engaged’ or ‘married’ while they are single; after looking at gym-carved bodies or becoming victims of spiteful Facebook postings.
Author Julie Spira coined the term Social Media Anxiety Disorder (SMAD). This unofficial, non-medical condition describes those who feel aggravated after not receiving an immediate Twitter @reply. They may become depressed each time someone unfollows or unfriends them. And may continuously refresh their social media tabs awaiting an update. They cannot live without their smartphones and surprisingly become annoyed when others text or check their social media updates during meetings or social gatherings.
Where does this leave men? Where the online world has always kept them: entertained for hours in front of YouTube, watching sports re-runs and funny commercials.

Women Media-ing It Up

Before that first cup of coffee and the morning newspaper; you’ve probably checked your smartphone, taken your tablet from the bedside table and logged on. More and more brands are using social media as an inexpensive marketing tool. So, which brands are leading the pack in Africa?
Our methodology considered African brands and international brands operating in Africa. They had to be present on: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Initial data from socialbakers.com—a social media and digital analytics company—was compared with howwemadeitinafrica.com and africantoptwitterusers.com. The list was compiled on November 8.
The following indicators were considered, according to a percentage ratio: Facebook likes; the number of people ‘talking about’ the brand, which was also considered as a percentage of Facebook likes; Twitter followers and tweets and the number of YouTube views and subscribers.
Facebook likes are accumulated on an ongoing basis, whereas ‘talking about’ illustrates user-engagement, over a month, without any long-term following. In short, the ‘talking about’ as a percentage of Facebook likes category resolved the temporal discrepancy.
In 2011, Portland Communications and Tweetminster analyzed more than 11.5 million geo-located tweets, unearthing that Africa’s wealthiest countries dominate social media. South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco make up the top five in order of Twitter activity.
FORBES AFRICA found that although South Africa dominates Twitter activity; Northern Africa is the continental leader, in terms of brands with the greatest social media footprint. Seven of the top 20 brands are located in Egypt; four are located in South Africa and Morocco; three in West Africa and one in both Algeria and Kenya.
Social media was used extensively during the Arab Spring uprising, which erupted in December 2010. The fact that social media usage remains high in Egypt and Morocco and could be the lasting legacy of this historic moment in world and online history.
The telecommunications sector—be they manufacturers or service providers—has latched onto the internet capabilities of most mobile devices; 57% of tweets from Africa, are sent from a mobile phone, according to Portland Communications.
“…Telecommunications are intricately connected to the daily life experience of today’s consumer. Almost everything we do is supplemented by our mobile phones in some way… For this reason, consumers are always looking to get the best value from their telecommunications providers and they’re interested in what these companies have to say,” says Catherine Scott, social media manager at Quirk.
Twelve of the brands on the list were from the telecommunications sector; two from media and finance; one from retail and the food and beverage sector. Surprisingly, the fourth leading brand is a non-governmental organization—One Campaign, which works towards eliminating poverty in Africa.
The question remains: is customer engagement with these brands based on compelling content; mass-media marketing or the opportunity to voice discontent?
The brand with the highest number of Facebook likes and user-engagement by means of the ‘talking about’ category was Vodafone Egypt with 2,071,890 and 153,115 respectively. It also has the highest ‘talking about as a percentage of Facebook likes’ ranking, at 49%. Al-masry Al-youm, an Egyptian media channel, has the highest number of Twitter followers—979,455; yet Safaricom of Kenya had the greatest number of tweets—148,208. Tahrir Channel, of Egypt, has the greatest number of YouTube subscribers (97,782) and views (25,527,629).
Many a dinner table may speculate if social media can kill the mainstream media advertising star; the list indicates such a possibility.
Is the success of social media due to the vision of early adopters; its capability to mobilize social causes or the work of smart agencies, be they advertising or strategic? Could social media mean the death of the billboard? Take a look at the numbers.

#IsTheBillboardDead?

The bid came on Twitter from a self-proclaimed expert in social media. His account had just 15 followers, so the expert bit seemed implausible.
“I will give you another 5,000 twitter followers,” his tweet stated. It was going to cost a mere $5.
“It’s my lucky day”, I thought, as I clicked on the link to his website, which offered packages with four orders in the queue. His website was crammed with praise and good reviews from previous so-called follower buyers. A quick internet search brought up many more saying: “Buy Twitter followers—1,000 quality followers for only $14—save now. One hundred percent money back guarantee!”
Always being one for a good deal, I happened to spot 22,000 Twitter followers for only $20. A few clicks later, I’d  have my own Twitter empire and fame, beyond my wildest dreams.
It’s the new big deal in social media—the purchasing of Facebook friends, likes and Twitter followers. It creates illusions of influence and grandeur overnight yet with little substance.
The other week I received an e-mail from a young businessman claiming 25,000 followers on Twitter. I fed the account details through a website called StatusPeople.com, an application that analyses accounts for their follower validity. There we had it! The tool identified the Twitter feed as having an almost 80% fake follower rating—these are ghost Twitter accounts set up by someone with merely a name and at best a photo. These accounts are inactive in terms of tweeting and are designed to be fillers. They are registered in bulk to sell to someone looking for large numbers of followers overnight.
I ran a few prominent Twitter accounts through the Status People application to get an indication of how many fake accounts exist in the Twittersphere. Surprisingly, a lot. First up was Pastor Chris Oyakhilome from Nigeria, better known as ‘Pastor Chris’ or ‘Christ Embassy’ to his followers both in real-life and on Twitter. With more than one million followers, the Status People application indicates that 47% of his followers are inactive and 18% are fake, which means that the remaining 35% are legitimate and active Twitter followers. Would this be a case of ‘many are tweeted, yet few are active?’
In South Africa, I analyzed some of the bigger twitter accounts. South African cricketer Graeme Smith has a 230,000 Twitter following, of which 53% are inactive and 27% are fake, which doesn’t leave many to influence or tweet after the match.
Then there is @GarethCliff, the South African Idols judge and breakfast radio host, with a 340,000 Twitter following. He has a 44% inactive following and a further 17% are listed as fake, according to the application. By no means do I believe that any of the above mentioned accounts bought followers, especially Cliff—who has an army of fans the length and breadth of the land, however public personalities have been known to leverage their Twitter accounts for promotional purposes as an added-value service, imaginably, leaving their clients expecting.
South Africa’s Woolworths retailer was not spared when @JustinHarrison—sporting more than 680,00 followers, of which 78% are considered fake by the Status People application—unleashed a public relations nightmare on the retail giant after claiming so-called racially discriminatory employment practices, which were ceremonially dismissed by the retail giant. Nevertheless, this led to a mainstream media and Twitter onslaught which lasted for weeks and resulted in Woolworths disabling their Facebook wall due to the public outcry on their social media platforms.
Remarkably, even with the high amount of ghost Twitter followers involved, this matter managed to gain remarkable media exposure and in monetary terms what can cost one man, may mean earnings for another.
Ad Dynamo, a contextual advertising company which focuses on mobile and online platforms, introduced a new marketing service called  ‘sponsored tweets’. According to the company, Twitter users who have signed up to Ad Dynamo’s sponsored tweets service become paid publishers by responding to briefs prepared by advertisers.
“The advertiser can review the tweeter in advance of authorizing and paying for their tweet—looking at the user’s recent tweets, profile, and so on.  Each tweet purchased by the advertiser is overlaid against the advertiser’s Twitter account, enabling them to review the increase in followers, retweets and mentions against each individual tweet purchased. This enables them to measure the effectiveness of each tweet purchased and of each Twitter user that submits a draft to the advertiser,” says Ad Dynamo spokesperson, Richard Bell.
For the unseasoned marketer, this could prove to be dangerous ground initially, as those with massive followings on Twitter could charge a premium, for brands to get exposure to thousands of followers, only to find that these are ghost accounts. Ad Dynamo assures me that they have integrated post-campaign analysis to monitor the success of individually paid tweets, however, this is very much after the fact as opposed to a pre-screening.
So what value do advertisers receive if the perceived amount of targeted followers is actually an inaccurate number? Very little one would imagine.
As exciting as these thousands of newly-bought followers might be for anyone’s ego, it’s a bit like hosting a dinner party for blow up dolls, and for advertisers it would be much the same experience. Tweets are being read by fewer people than expected and will receive virtually little engagement or response. So, what is the point of all of this?
This will be one of the bigger stepping stones in the development of social media, much like when the first cellphone and modem came along—we didn’t really know what to do with it or how to use it effectively. The accurate measurement, use and credibility of social media will be the next big breakthrough, apart from figuring out how to develop a sustainable business model around these platforms, and maybe make some legitimate friends.

Tag: Twitter

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA