Twitter Trends in South Africa

social media scorecard

Twitter has as of this year become mainstream in South Africa! Slow to be accepted as playing a vital role it is now evident that it has influence and people at large are sitting up and taking notice. The Saturday Star, January 25 2014 published a full page with the title “Social media’s key role in the looming elections” with the following statement “Do 13 million users have the muscle to shift the polls towards one side or another?” The Star published the Twitter follower numbers of the nine most prominent political parties in South Africa. The follower party numbers ranged from 18 followers to 407,8K followers. With political party shifts Twitter is always abuzz with the latest happenings.  The Star newspaper stating:

“This will be the first real social media elections in South Africa”

social media influencing DECISION MAKING PROCESSES

Using the South African elections as an example to drive the point home, twitter social media has become mainstream as many more people become active in the use of this social media tool on a daily basis. Savvy marketers in businesses large and small and traditional media folk who have long held the reigns in marketing are now actively engaging on the medium themselves and on behalf of businesses they represent.  Twitter is now a social media tool that is fast becoming a social norm in South Africa.

SOUTH AFRICA IS far BEHIND THE USA IN SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICE

But this does not mean that we should continue to lag behind. One only has to scan the book shelves of book shops to find best practices and guidelines to take ‘Influence Marketing’ seriously; which is what social media boils down to.

HOW EFFECTIVE AND REAL TIME IS TWITTER?

It took only 14 minutes for Danny Brown, US author of a top 100 ranked publication to reply to my tweet requesting permission to quote from his book. That is quite incredible!

Co author of ‘influence marketing’ DANNY BROWN

Danny Brown - Manager, Social Engagement and Insights for iGaming at Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG). Recognized as one of the Top 100 Business Books in America by Nielsen BookScan. Danny is an award-winning marketer who has delivered results for oranizations like Microsoft Canada, BlackBerry, FedEx, Ford Canada and LG Electronics, and his blog is recognized as the #1 marketing blog in the world by HubSpot.
Co authored by Sam Fiorella - strategist and public speaker

emotional loyalty
The search for emotional loyalty – the ability to connect at a deeper level is for many the Holy Grail of marketing.

once upon a time

There were the 4 P’s of Marketing: Product, Price, Promotion, and Place

Now there are the 4 M’s: Make, Manage, Monitor, and Measure

three essential targets

Three essential targets that every brand should be building their strategy around and monitoring how each campaign is progressing based on these goals:

·   Awareness (blog posts, social shares and updates, news articles, media interviews, mentions of company)

·   reaction (increased followers/visits instore)

·   action (purchase)

SOCIAL MEDIA and the ripple effect

Social Media plays four primary roles within the enterprise:

1.  lISTENING

2.  BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS

3.  MAGNIFICATION – THE EFFECT OF A WIDER AUDIENCE

4.  DRIVING SALES

Be it for prospective or existing customers, these four interrelated roles support one goal – to influence the consumer’s decision making process.
@DannyBrown @samfiorella #influencemktg

The above extracts are taken from 'Influence Marketing'       

Please note: This blog only scratches the surface of the above publication.

CONCLUSION

Twitter is a powerful network for sharing content and engaging with people. Assisting and nurturing ones community. Having fun, story-telling, announcing events, providing information. Building two way relationships that build brand loyalty.


SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIAL MEDIA SUCCESS STORY - @WAKABERRY
Wakaberry @Wakaberry, the first self-service soft-serve frozen yoghurt bar in South Africa is a prime example of an engaged brand that has grown exponentially both on Twitter and its footprint throughout South Africa. One year ago it had 8,772 followers, today Wakaberry has 23,301 Twitter followers and several new branches have opened and more are to open. I have no doubt in my mind that firstly starting with a good product Twitter has served a dual purpose. Twitter has promoted greater awareness of the brand to young people via the Twitter sphere as well as gaining investor confidence in the brand.

A PASSION FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
It bodes well when people who work in social media are passionate about the product and the company that they represent. They are in effect sharing the love and the good news for their product/s. What better way to spend the day than that! One needs to find the value and related content and work it to good effect. Follow and get to know followers and what they want from the brand at a particular time in their life. Building long term customer relationships and loyalty is not an event, it’s a process and some companies have used social media to good effect but far, far more companies in South Africa could do so.  By creating and building a social brand can also create and build a strong company culture!