Social Media Awards partners with Deloitte

July 2^nd 2013: OLX Social Media Awards have partnered with Financial Services Advisory firm Deloitte for the audit of nominations which closed yesterday after 26 days of entries.

Deloitte East Africa will provide quality assurance in the voting exercise which has so far attracted thousands of entries and judges have a fortnight to select winners from the nominees. 

“We join hands in this venture as a sign that we fully understand the critical role that social media now plays in brand visibility,” said Martin Oduor-Otieno, Deloitte East Africa Partner in charge of Clients and Markets and a senior advisor in Financial Services Industry.

“Social media is now one of the key platforms used by firms to build image, brand and disseminate information on services and products offered.”

Rapid rise in the number of internet users in Kenya has accelerated the use of social media, igniting a steady increase in the number of businesses using social media platforms for brand awareness and customer service.  

Presently, 17 million Kenyans, 36 percent of the population, have access to internet according to the Communications Commission of Kenya. However, there are grim statistics that indicate the businesses are yet to optimize the use of social media platforms.  

For instance, 56 percent of customer tweets to companies are being ignored; this is according to all AllTwitter, an unofficial twitter resource. Martin Muli, one of the organisers of the recently unveiled OLX Social Media Awards, says most organisations have dormant social media accounts, and the active ones often bombard the public with bland company information.  

A quick review of comments from SOMA Facebook and Twitter accounts shows a serious contest between Safaricom and Kenya power shaping up for the customer care category of the Awards, with Orange and Faiba battling for the video of the year category.

Churchil Show, Tujuane, The trend TV are equally emerging as the favourites under the show of the year category, with Maina kangeni and Larry Madowo winning the minds of “netizens” for the media personality category as the voting process begins.

 “The OLX Social Media Awards are meant to spur professional use of social media and sustained conversation on these platforms,” says Mr Muli.  The Awards will bring together different social media enthusiasts and organizations to celebrate the tremendous contributions brought about by social media and at the same time appreciate and acknowledge those who have immensely contributed to the growth of social Media in Kenya.

“The power has truly shifted to consumers. A recent survey by TNS RMS, a research agency, showed that in contrast to Global internet use, Social Media is far more relevant then e-mail in Kenya. The survey actually discovered that out that 57 % of Kenyans believe that what other people say about brands online can be trusted more than what the brands say,” Peter Ndiangui, the General Manager of OLX, the leading online market place.

The Awards will culminate to a gala event to be held on 9th August 2013. “This is a first in Kenya, we’ve roped in experts from various fields to make sure the Awards are a success,” says Mr Muli. Other partners in the award include Trinc Media, the Public Relations Society of Kenya and Thinck, a content development firm, Bloggers Association of Kenya and Niaje.

Ryan Giggs Super Injunction :A Case of Freedom of Speech Online

Can the Courts regulate freedom of speech online under the aegis of "Right to Privacy" or "Defamatory Laws"  ,and or, other related laws? and even if they "try" to do so, is it an exercise in futility seeing the rapid advancement  and universal appeal of social networks and its tools such as Twitter, MySpace and Facebook?That's a question that will leave even the most advanced juridical mind boggled with its complexity as there are different legal regimes and questions of Jurisdiction/conflict of laws that would govern the issue . The acid test has been proven this week when a UK Court issued a mandatory (Super) Injunction prohibiting the naming and discussion of an alleged affair involving a  famous UK Footballer Ryan Giggs and a Reality TV Star Imogen Thomas .

But the said Order made the buzz on Twitter even more virulent as more than 75,000 Tweeps   discussed the footballer with abject abandon in a clear show that the law in Britain needs to be looked at afresh when it comes to Freedom of Speech and emerging technologies. For example it would be impracticable to arrest , prosecute and imprison the over 75,000 Twitter users who openly named the player. Infact the openess of Twitter made it possible or rather emboldened mainstream Media to cover the story without fear of incurring further Legal Liability for publishing the same (See BBC news item on Ryan Giggs).

The story is of interest to most internet users and is a demonstration of perhaps the changes that Laws in different Jurisdictions should envisage as the World becomes more technologically  interwoven.Whereas the Injunction my be binding in UK, one could verily discuss the issue outside that Jurisdiction.


Now for the humorous ,this Tweet by @GoalGodNando has just a funny limb to it:

Ryan Giggs has probably scored more times off the pitch than I have on it for Chelsea...... viva la torres

or this Tweet

Imogen Thomas' sex tape leaked on Internet. Not downloading though, it's about 11 giggs.

Regulating online content will perhaps be the enigma of current lawmakers and Jurist in the World right now irrespective of the Country.

Kenyans Take To Twitter :#choosepeace, #Kenya28Feb

Its amazing how the internet is readily proving to be an instrument for organizing and coalescing mass action and mass expression . Following the Tunisian and Egyptian protest debacle on the social media site Twitter, Kenyans are coming up with their own rival protests under the following hashtags:

• #Kenya28Feb calling upon Kenyans to voice their discontent with the going ons in the political establishment.
• #ChoosePeace calling on other Kenyans not to follow the ongoing trend of mass protests and disgruntlement, as has been witnessed in the Egyptian protests.

This trending development is of interest to many pundits as it impacts on the role of social media in voicing discontent, mobilization of mass protests in real time , freedom of expression and whether Governments should take an increasing role in policing , monitoring and or regulation of social media.Will  perhaps the present developments result in greater Government scrutiny of Social media?How that turns out a wait and see approach may be best at the moment.

FourSquare.Com- Twitter in Geographic Perspective !

Foursquare .Com is the next big thing to hit the technological world of social networks.Pundits including Mashable are on to the smart phone application .Whereas, Twitter without doubt has grown to be a powerful social media and marketing forum, however the thing about Twitter is that often the tweets and friends one receives are often not geocentric.

As was the case with Myspace and Facebook ,some two genius minds have come up with a concept/social media networking forum(the service was created by Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai) that enables one to post Tweets that are geocentric about places and events and a plus to the application is that the Tweets or review about the event or place will permanently remain attached to the location. Poor service providers best beware, your customers may just be onto you!

The site includes a Google maps integration widget to enable the user point out where they are at , what is going on, a review of the place... etc and this will remain embeddable about the specific location. Now that's a powerful marketing tool.

The Foursquare mobile phone application that allows you to “check-in” to a particular foursquare location is compatible with the following smart phone's Blackberries, iPhones, Androids and Palm Pres.The application using GPS or closet cell phone tower can determine about where you are. You then choose from a list of nearby locations or enter in a new location.Once checked in, a user can write a review of wherever they are.The review stays permanently connected to that particular location in the foursquare world.The application has led to the development of the term "Geo-social Networking" and boasts of over half a million users Worldwide.

Thus if you visit a hotel and you like the service you can notify your Foursquare friends, if you come across a major sale taking place and you want to notify your friends and leave directions,Foursquare will do that for you. As you visit more places you start to earn points or badges for the places you check-in. This adds an interesting gaming element to the network, which has proven very popular on social sites like Facebook. Even better than collecting badges is the chance to become the “mayor” of a location. You are named “mayor” of a location if you are the person who has checked-in the most and a lot of locations are starting to offer special deals to the “mayor” so they keep promoting them.

Will Foursquare prove popular in Africa ? Of course but unfortunately most people in the continent dont find Twitter to be so relevant. Foursquare is about to change that because of its potential and the reward effect.For example in Nairobi one can imagine the perks a famous restaurant such as the Carnivore Restaurant would love to give for its most frequent Foursquare visitor i.e "Mayor".In effect they will be receiving free social media advertising by genuine customers.For now as i learn the application i extent the invitation to my twitter buddies in Kenya please join me up at FOURSQUARE  and lets create our virtual cities !

How To Make Money Online From Home With Twitter

With the global recession it really doesn't hurt if one can make some extra money online at home or while on the go so long as you are connected to the Internet. However few people have the skills or the technical know-how to make money online but it can be really simple. Today i focus on Twitter. Twitter is a social media whereby the users can send short online messages to their friends and twitter is huge-much huge than facebook at the moment. So if you don't have a twitter account please sign up @Twitter.

After signing up please look up for services that sponsor you to post short URLs to your twitter account and each time a person clicks on the link you earn a CPC(a cost per click) pre-defined amount that can later on be credited to your account or paid to you via PayPal so long as you reach the minimum thresh hold.To increase your earnings and possibility of people clicking on your ads get more people to follow you by posting interesting tweets.And as a rule DO NOT SPAM your twitter followers.

So which advertising platforms can you try out; i recommend the following, just click on the banners and you are off to a good start:

1. Revtwt
   
2. SponsoredTweets
   
   
   
3. (List to continue...)
   
   
   This information is particularly useful for African Twitter followers and users, you can make money online and get well paid for it.It is not a must you adorn a suit to make money in this day and age you just have to work smart not just hard!And if you have a profession then multi task-i do and the small money i get pays my bills and runs the house leaving me to invest in other areas!Harness the power of the Internet ,twitter is just one platform!

Paula Abdul Quits American Idol Via Twitter!

Twitter has become a powerful news source by many celebrities to personally break confidential information to the outside world. The latest instance is this tweet from Paula Abdul's Twitter page informing the World that she will not be judging in the next season of American Idol. That just goes to show how powerful twitter has become as a source of information.I wonder how many prominent Kenyan personalities have a twitter page? I guess almost nil...many people(Businesses and corporates included) around here hardly know anything about twitter nor social media marketing whereas they can even make money from the same. see SPONTWTS .Too sad ..they should come for lessons.

Here' s Paula Abduls Twitter page screen shot:

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Plane Misshap !

California Governor Arnold Schwarzinegger Plane just had a misshap after smoke started coming of the airplanes cockpit forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing. The plane was forced to land at Van Nuys airport 10 minutes after taking off from Santa Monica Airport, west of Los Angeles. For the former Terminator actor im sure that was a harrowing experience. And guess what he tweeted about the event on his Twitter address@Schwarzenegger .He even has photos up on Twitpic Interestingly CNN has picked upthe story and are running it! Thats how powerful social media has become.

But the public needs not to be worried because fortunately enough governor Arnie (and all the crew)is all safe !

Sponsored Conversations

TwtAd Changes Name to RevTwt !

TwtAd a popular Twitter based Advertising and marketing portal just recently changed its name to RevTwt. Unfortunately many people in Kenya have not embraced Twitter and even if they do; for lack of knowledge of how to use it and failure of getting many followers-many end up abandoning the social network.

However with advertisement portals such as RevTwt and by getting more followers one actually make money online from their tweets! I have done some previous posts on how you can get more twitter followers and you will probably see them in my related posts . So take advantage join RevTwt ,Get more followers, write interesting twits and make money online on autopilot, its that easy!Its working for me and can be the same for you.To follow me on twitter please go to @collinsom92

Twitter Counter Website Count API Down?

Twitter Counter is the ultimate twitter statistics provider website that allows you to display widgets that show the number of Twitter users following you in real time! But their server widget API seems to have been down for the past 48 hours since as you can see from my side widget that it is displaying my Twitter followers count at 398 whereas my current follower status is 433 and increasing by the minute !According to the site my twitter rank globally is at position 66,772.I find that impressive .In Kenya i rank at position 36 and steadily climbing!

Unfortunately that statistic is misleading. Im sure that if someone can come up with another constantly updating widget on the number of twitter followers a use has that person will make a killing as twitter counter is somehow slow or not efficient as it should be. It's not in doubt that many companies have now taken to twitter marketing as the number of twitter followers continue to swell. Kenyan corporates are still on using tradiitional marketing techniques and continue to pity them.But should a company need social media marketing tips and techniques im open for consultations.

Im also pleased to see that more and more Africans and or people interested in Afrian tweets are signing up at the afritwits twibe which is an aggregating portal for geocentric african twits. If you havent signed up please take this opportunity to sign up and or follow me on Twitter @collinsom92

Heatwave Celebrity Cruise

African Followers on Twitter(Afritwits Twibe)

Its not in doubt that millions of people are finding twitter as choice medium for communicating(as recently demonstrated by celebrity person Ashton Kutcher in his 1 million followers malaria nets for Africa campaign) ! It is also not in doubt that thousands of Africans from various countries are daily joining up the list of new twitter users.

However to learn how to use twitter and gain followers many need directions.To help out in this regards i have decided to use Twibes(a twitter based website)to aggregate african user tweets and followers.I have formed the Afritwits group at Twibes . The idea is to come up with an afrocentric twitter group where the latest twit on Africa can be accessed.It is also a forum to follow African twitter followers and let your tweets be distinguished in the rapidly growing twittersphere. Hence if you are on twitter and want to join up, get more followers, please do not hesitate :

Click up and join up @ http://www.twibes.com/group/Afritweets

An interesting link on who has the most twitter followers in Africa, statistics can also be found @ TWITTERHOLIC .To follow me on twitter just go to my TWITTER AD/USERNAME

Twitter Search for Conversation

Twitter is dabbling with the idea of real-time search, which is a concept that should get Google worried atleast for the time being. The Twitter web conversation monitoring website has grown exponentially ( according to twitter blog they have acheived above 900% active user growth in just one year)and has now reached a critical mass level that can see it emerge as a new search engine giant but providing a new unique service that may see Google drooling!

Twitter search is now being hosted on its own sub domain at search.twitter.It seems more and more people are eager to know the latest conversation in the internet be it facebook, twitter etc and the fact that this social media platforms are accesible via mobile phones and other portable gadgets makes it the all more attractive! Interestingly twitter has only 29 employees but i am certain this is bound to change soon.Internet use is morphing at a tremendous rate , it seems man & woman is more pre-occupied with telling whats new or learning about it, blogs, social networks, celebrity gossip,chat and online conversations are the in thing and busineses are adapting to this new trend.In future candidates may just win an election based on their prominence in some of this social forums such as facebook-indeed exciting times lie ahead


Need business leads?

Twitter-Twittads And Blogging !

Many Western bloggers use twitter to generate traffic and follow up on blogs or on activities of friends of interest.During post election crisis Kenyan Blogger Ory Okolloh of KenyanPundit fame updated her readers via sms using twitter on election violence and this gave birth to the award winning website Ushahidi.Com but the use of Twitter is not so widespread or well known among internet users in Sub -Saharan Africa.

I personally use Twitter ,my twitter account is : http://twitter.com/collinsom92, if you are a blogger and are interested in following me please create a twitter account and click on my link and add me.The benefit of twitter is that you can receive and send tweets through your PDA or Mobile Phone(i-phones) etc.You can update your friends on the go so it is necessary for an enlightened online entrepreneur.So are you one ? its time you started tweeting .

What if you already are on twitter and are following me.I want to share tips on 2 delightful services:

1. Twitterfeed:This service will post your blog feeds to twitter automatically for you .You can customize the service on how often you want your posts updated.
   
2. Twittad: First and only website created to allow Advertisers place ads on Twitter.If you sign up you may just have an opportunity to earn money on ads placed on your twitter account!Perfect site for social website promotion,networking and product placement.Online Marketeers watch this website it will grow big in huge leaps and bounds!
   

Hence you can clearly see that Twitter offers a variety of opportunities and is a fast developing popurlar tool for professional bloggers.Join twitter and follow this blog for updates and tweets on how to maximize and optimize your use of twitter!