Category: Business

A Year As A Rotary Club President

At my Induction with my husband Gordon and daughter Amy
At my Induction with my husband Gordon and daughter Amy

Becoming a member of Rotary International is a privilege and an honour. Becoming the President of your club after being a Rotarian for just two and a half years is just darn right terrifying! Throw in being the Public Image (PI) Chair of your District (District 9370) and life becomes just a little bit insane!

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I Love Social Media Training

Training people on social media can either be rewarding or frustrating. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my training delegates embrace what I have taught them and work hard to ensure the success of their social media accounts for their businesses.

Getting positive feedback from a client is always a bonus especially long after the training as social media is not a sprint – it is a marathon.

Thank you to Megan Harker for this feedback shared on her Facebook Profile. I trained Megan a good few years ago but she has often called me to ask me about new developments on Facebook and to ask my advice on her strategy. I am always happy to assist as her interest and enthusiasm just makes my day!

Positive feedback via Megan of Gecko Culinary Adventures
Positive feedback via Megan of Gecko Culinary Adventures

Well done Megan and all the best to you and Gecko Culinary Adventures.
Join Gecko on their Facebook Page for yummy recipes and helpful tips

Facebook is King in South Africa

I thought you may find the following stats, extracted from an article on Biz Community, as interesting as I did.
You can read the full article here

Image via http://darin.cc/
Image via http://darin.cc/

The key findings of the SA Social Media Landscape 2014 research study, released today by World Wide Worx and Fuseware:

  • Facebook has 9,4-million active users in South Africa, up from 6,8-million users a year ago.
  • Mxit, the previous market leader, fell back to 7,4-million users from 9,5-million
  • Twitter saw the highest percentage growth among the major social networks, from 2,4-million to 5,5-million – showing 129% growth in 12 months.
  • 87% of Facebook users and 85% of Twitter users are accessing these tools on their phones.
  • Google+ growth is slow with only 466,000 active users
  • Instagram has grown from 100,000 a year ago to 680,000 in August 2013.
  • WhatsApp is presently the most popular app in the Android, Apple and Windows app stores
  • 93% of major brands use Facebook, 79% use Twitter, 58% YouTube, 46% LinkedIn and 28% Pinterest

The SA Social Media Landscape 2014 research report, available from the end of this week, contains extensive data on both consumer and corporate use of social networks. An update to the report, providing detailed instant messaging statistics and social media forecasts for 2014, will be released at the end of 2013.

For more information visit http://www.worldwideworx.com and http://www.fuseware.net.

Recent Social Media Presentations

It is always a great pleasure and honour to be asked to do a presentation on social media. The opportunity to respond to social media sceptics or to help a social media enthusiast with those one or two questions that have been bugging them, is most rewarding.

Over the years I have presented to very diverse groups of people. Very corporate groups such as Old Mutual and Ithala Bank to networking groups such as Durban Silver Lining, Exas and Inspiring Women Network. It has been my pleasure to present to many organisations such as Tourism Enterprise Partnership; The Professional Speakers Association of South Africa (PSASA); Business & Arts South Africa (BASA); Msunduzi Pietermaritzburg Tourism Association; and the Printing, Publishing and Packaging Federations of South Africa.

With Sharlene Versveld, Lindie Lila and Kwazi Ngubane at a BASA Durban workshop
With Sharlene Versveld, Lindie Lila and Kwazi Ngubane at a BASA Durban workshop
With Gordon Reid at a presentation to the Printing and Packaging Industries held at Independent Newspapers
With Gordon Reid at a presentation to the Printing and Packaging Industries held at Independent Newspapers

This week I did a presentation to the The Public Relations Institute of South Africa (PRISA.) Prior to starting Outsourced Communications I was an active member PRISA and sat on the KZN committee. Having given talks to students at tertiary institutes before, I was thrilled to see numerous students in the audience. The youth of today are very switched on to social media and online networking but need to be reminded that what they post and share today, will one day be seen and reviewed by their future employers.

My thanks to PRISA for inviting me to talk to their members and students and for the lovely flowers that I received.

Attendees at the PRISA KZN workshop at the Riverside Hotel
Attendees at the PRISA KZN workshop at the Riverside Hotel

Client Feedback

It is so rewarding to get positive feedback from a client isn’t it?

I recently worked on the Taste of Durban Facebook and Twitter account.

I setup the Twitter and Facebook accounts on the 1 June and worked on them until the 10 August.

I have to admit that I was permanently hungry working on these accounts. Great chefs and exhibitors selling mouth watering products filled my days.

What a stunning festival it was considering it was the first such event held in Durban. I am sure Taste of Durban will be a firm favourite for Durban foodies in the future.

I worked closely with Alex Mayne who is the Marketing Manager of Taste Festivals and she e-mailed me this after the project was over:

Thank-you for all your hard work, the social media campaign has been the best we have ever had on any event. I cant tell you how thrilled we are and we hope you will work with us again on Taste of Durban 2013.

I’ll definitely be delighted to be a part of the festival again. My thanks to Joanne Hayes of Tumbleweed Communications for recommending me for this project. Always a pleasure to work with you Joanne.

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