This is not a blog

Here it is: a hit song to save the world
Kollektivit – ever heard of them?
Me neither.
Thanks Gabi!

This is the best thing I’ve seen in a really long time. And it got me to blog after months, so you know it’s gotta be good!

This GoT parody of Flo-Rida’s Wild One features ‘Jon Snow’, ‘Ygritte’, ‘Danaerys’ and other Game of Thrones characters we love, or love to hate.

socialbakers recently (or I guess not so recently considering the industry), their regional report for SA. This takes a look at top performing brand pages on Facebook, by various different metrics, including fans, engagement, and responses.

There’s some pretty interesting stuff there – like the biggest fan page in terms of media (so a magazine, newspaper or radio as opposed to a telecomms or FMCG brand). Any ideas? I reckon you’d be surprised.

Check out the socialbakers report below!

The most fulfilling thing I’ve done at SMWLagos  since I got here was head over to the photography workshop being run by an American photographer (who’s lineage hails from Nigeria) Delphine Fawundu. (Just a note – Nokia is my client and the reason that I’m here.)

What Delphine is doing is to work with a group of children from the Ovie Brume Foundation, with a bunch of Nokia Lumias, and teaching them how to work the cameras in the Lumias to take photos, express themselves, and think in a different way.

The foundation believes in a Nigeria where the youth are strong, confident and well- developed, as well as supporting any other establishments which promote the development of the youth in the country.

After taking the kids through the functionality of her digital SLR and explaining the way things work on there and what effect they may have on the end result of the photo, she then took them through the Nokia Lumia camera functionality, explaining the differences as well as the similarities. Each child in the class was given a brand new Nokia Lumia 920 and Delphine helped them all set up their phones and get to their cameras, with the help of two team leaders who are alumni of the foundation.

We take so much for granted in our lives that it was a real eye opener for me to see the enthusiasm and excitement coming from these kids. I think they were even more stoked that someone was taking the time out to teach them a skill that they were genuinely interested in learning, than they were necessarily about being given free Lumia 920s (apparently a fairly scarce commodity in Nigeria). It didn’t take any of them long to get the hang of the phones and I was amazed, as I always am with the newest generation, at how easily the touch screen and swiping motion came as second nature.

Delphine gave the kids a project to complete and we will be seeing the results of them tomorrow – Really looking forward to it!

In spite of rolling power failures throughout the city of Lagos, the African continent’s first Social Media Week kicked off on Monday, with delegates from all over the world arriving to both listen and speak at the world renowned event.

Social Media Week has been running for 5 years in New York and has, since the first event, spread over 12 countries.

“By programming keynotes and panels that look at how Africans – Nigerians in particular – are incorporating social media in their unique social, political, and creative landscapes, Social Media Week Lagos will explore just how important being connected to the world is for 21st century Africans,” – Ngozi Odita, Executive Director of Social Media Week Lagos.

Opening the first day at the MACE (Media, Arts, Culture and Entertainment) hub was Nzan Ogbe, the chairman of the Calabar Music Festival Planning Committee, with a look at the way social media drives the festival itself. With presences on a majority of the social platforms, the Festival provides always on, almost real time content from the festival, including schedules, images tweets, daily reminders and so on, in order to ensure that everyone attending, or wishing they were attending knows exactly what’s going on at all times.

The bonus for them of social media, is the ability to update the schedule, change events, and take into account things like thunderstorms (global warming) and be able to inform all attendees of any changes immediately through the advent of new media, and these real time platforms – schedules get updated and people are kept in the know.

Crowd-sourcing is something they are also looking at utilising in order to ensure that the online community is able to create content as well as consume it. Planning to offer incentives from their sponsors in order to encourage user generated content. Leveraging sponsorships enables higher coverage as well.

They are in the process of building a mobile app and implementing gamification, and Facebook streaming of all their events going forward.

People get FOMO when they see the pictures and tweets that are coming out of the Calabar Twitter account and the numbers and ROI of Social Media in this instance is trackable. The Festival committee organises surveys to be run, as well as looking at hotel occupation for the duration of the festival, as well as ticket sales. Both  qualitative and quantitative research in order to track the return. Tourism is the main objective in this regard in order to have an impact on the economy, as well as on people’s lives. over 300 vendors work in the festival village over December, and it has been said, anecdotally that some of these vendors do more business in December than they do in the rest of the year.

At the end of the day, or at least the end of the festival, they believe that social media is one of the key drivers of attendance of the festival, the festival drives tourism, and this, in turn, drives economic growth, benefiting the city all round.

Fact and figures of the Calabar Music Festival Social Media community:
25 – 35 years
identify with trends
32.4% audience male
>24000 views on YouTube from 66 countries around the world (Mostly USA)
most liked video of all time has less than ⅓ of the views on the most viewed video
> 2000 members in their BBM group – used primarily to get pics of artists to share with friends
> 12000 followers on FB – group plus page
> 2000 followers on Twitter
The Festival hashtrag trended on Twitter Dec 27th

www.calabarfestival.com

For all the copywriters and grammar nazis out there.
I think this was made for me :)

Thanks Esther :)

aaah day 3. Fun times. Similarly puffy eyes on day 3 and something of a headache but hey I’m starting to get a taste for the rabbit food. Or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!

I’m not really missing the wine yet. But perhaps that’s because I’ve been waking up feeling hungover everyday anyway so my body hasn’t realised what it’s not getting yet. I’m sure it’ll sneak up on me soon enough and pounce but for now I’m alright.

I’ve got a drawer full of carby things in my desk which has been opened and closed bunch of times, but only because I keep looking for extra space to stash papers, and I haven’t really been tempted on that front yet.

I think the fruity smoothies with oats and yoghurt in them are the best start to the day because I find that I don’t feel hungry for ages after I’ve smashed one in my face. Being super busy definitely helps as well – jumping from meeting to meeting leaves very little time for cravings.

Dinner with the fogies last night was a challenge – they like their ‘taters. I managed to resist and the big hunk of steak with veggies and salad did me well. I made a mad dash for the car though when the peaches and cream came out – don’t hink I would have been able to stop myself from diving face first into the peach tin.

I did, however, make myself a portion of USN protein dessert – banana toffee flavour. Man, that stuff is didddd-gusting! Whatever possessed me to buy it, I will never know. It’s been in the cupboard for about two years and every time I forget how gross it actually is, I make up another batch. And end up chucking it away. Yes, I should just throw the tub out, but it seems like such a waste! Anybody know if any of the other flavours are any more tasty?

Anyway, perhaps tomorrow will be better :)

It isn’t really a New Year’s Resolution. This detox came about more of a “Something’s gotta give” kind of breaking point that was reached last week in the midst of the 4th consecutive night of wine drinking and eating out. After New Year’s day. The time had come. Something needed to be done about this. So, on Saturday night (5 Jan) the decision was made, that there would be some semblance of a detox, followed, immediately, by some semblance of a healthy eating plan. It was set in stone, as much as something could be when described as ‘some semblance’.

Taking Sunday to mentally prepare I did something that I have never done before – waited until Monday to begin. I’m one for instant gratification. If I make up my mind that I want to buy something, I will go out and find a shop that I can get it from. (This usually comes after hours, weeks or months of umming and aaahing, whether it be a chocolate, a pair of shoes or a gadget, respectively.) But once the decision is made, it must be done. The same goes for diets, exercise and eating plans. If I’ve made up my mind, it will begin immediately. Except not this time.

Anyway, yesterday saw me trawling the fruit and veggies aisles of Woollies and finding myself 3 day detox effervescent kit (whether ti actually makes any difference we may never know, but at least I feel like I’m doing something extra), and eating more servings of the good stuff than I have in the last month combines (not entirely true, I hope).

This morning I woke up 500grams lighter – WOOHOO – but that was about the only good thing. My eyes were so puffy they didn’t want to open (this might not be a result of the detox but more of the fact that there was so much wine and something of a lack of sleep last week), and as the eyes opened further, so the headache picked up. I felt like I’d done a few rounds in the boxing ring. Didn’t even have to be with one of the greats, me not being a boxer and all.

Anyway, we shall see how it goes. It’s only sposed to be three days but maybe it’ll just be so awesome that I keep it going.

hahaha, yeah probably not.

What do you think about New Year’s Resolutions? Did you make any this year, and how many have you already broken?

You all know it. You’ve had enough of everyone and everything and all you want is a bit of change. Well, my friends, look no further. Hiring Bounty has arrived to answer your prayers. If you’re really looking for something different, or know someone who is, then check out my Want A New Job? page. There’s loads of Digital and Online marketing positions throughout the country that need filling, and you could earn a bit of extra cash doing it. What more could you want? Really?

Enjoy :)

I have so much to tell you I don’t even know where to start. Lady Gaga came to South Africa last week and played her first show in Johannesburg on Friday 30 November, 2012. Let me just start by saying I was absolutely blown away. I wasn’t the biggest or the most passionate fan, but I was keen to see the spectacular that I’ve heard so much about – The Born This Way Ball.

Let me just tell you that the standing section is not for the faint hearted. If you’re short, small, young, or have any issues with people in your personal space, breathing on you, or resting their armpits on your shoulder, bare this all in mind when you rush for your spot. And rush we did. After arriving at Soccer City and grabbing the quickest beer of my life, we went to go and stand in the queue. This was at about 3.30, with the gates only being opened at 5pm. Off we went, through the first check point, to stand behind several hundred people who were already waiting at the gates. We then did the worst thing, which would have irritated me, and I felt terrible doing it, but we found a friend much nearer to the front and made our way through the heaving throng of irritated fans making comments like “no really, we weren’t here first, don’t you worry”, which, to be fair, is probably what I would have been saying had I not been dragged through the mass hand in hand with the more uber of the fans in our little group :|

From that point, as soon as the gates opened it was utter chaos. Hand in hand, we ran like mad things, sprinting from one check point to the next where were stopped by the fact that we had to get through a narrowing space, or scan our tickets at the gate. Once inside the actual stadium, no one would let us down onto the field to the standing area, re-directing us from one entry point to another, and back again. And I was running, let me tell you. The fear of potentially losing the people I was with to that crazy crowd was enough to keep my legs pumping and my chest open in spite of being sick, having no voice and having coughed at least one of lungs up in the past week.

Anyway, having finally arrived in the standing section, we found ourselves about 4 or 5 rows of people back from a ramp-type looking thing separating us general standers to the super uber fans who had been in the queue since god-knows-what time that morning, or the day before. Apparently 250 people were let into the “Monster Pit”, and those were the first 250 people in the queue, as far as I understand it. The rest of us, as I mentioned, ran for our spots. I never thought I’d run like that for a pozzie at a concert, let alone a  Lady Gaga concert, but let me tell you it was worth it. In spite of the mouth breathing, drugged up retards who seemed to be incapable of not invading my personal space.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/1T3V90MgmUs]

For a bunch of people who were at a concert of a woman who basically preaches tolerance of everyone, in all shapes and forms, whatever their life choices or preferences may be, there was a hell of a lot of nastiness going on around us. A couple of girls just behind us almost got into fisticuffs with some pushing and shoving, followed by a few choice words out of one of them. The guy in front of me had a go at me for keeping my arm in front of me to protect my boobs, because it was digging into his back – yes that’s how close he was, A guy to our right full on shoved one of our friends out of his way and proceeded to stand with his sweaty armpit resting on my shoulder. The amount of times my toes got trodden on, and the amount of people who’s sweaty bodies rubbed up against me at one point or another, doesn’t bear reminiscing about.

And, in spite of all of that, this was by far the best concert I’ve been to. Sure it was expensive, but no more than Linkin Park golden Circle. And considering the show that we got out of it, the value for money was so much more with Gaga. The set alone was absolutely awesome, like a doll’s house that folded out in the form of a castle, let alone the 20 odd back up dancers, all the costume changes, additional props such as the ‘unicorn’ that she came out on, and the motorbike that she was practically a part of. The whole thing was a show, with a story behind it, narrated by a hologram on the right hand side of the stage. The choreography was pretty awesome – made me think how incredible it must be to be a back up dancer for someone of that stature, and all of the back up dancers also had several costume changes as well.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/WIKhb8Gu4bc]

Anyway, enough of my waffling, check out the Edge of Glory – don’t worry about the picture, rather listen to the crowd taking over her voice.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/4zClH6u99II]