The Brilliance Behind the City of Harare Ad.

The City of Harare recently released an advert that court and caught the attention of many. The ad, which has made a lot of noise on Social Media platforms especially Facebook and Twitter, depicted a woman riding on the back of a man, accompanied by the text "Do not be a free rider. Pay your Municipal Bills." See image below.

The 'controversial' Harare City ad.

The reason why the advert seems to court controversy is, like my colleague Charlton Tsodzo puts it in a Facebook comment "... you don't talk about riding and put people in the same context..." and I would add, people of different sex. The depiction got many people talking about this advert, venting their frustrations and shame at the alleged lack of creativity and SHARING the 'shameless' advert. This gets me to my point, that of the brilliance of this one ad.

The City of Harare (@cosunshinecity) wants to remind people to pay their bills, and what better way to do it than create an advert that goes viral, with a lot of Social Media influencers sharing it on their timelines and walls? You see, the issue here is how many people did the advert reach, and how many actually interacted with posts in which it featured, albeit with negative comments.

The City of Harare's (@cohsunshinecity) Twiiter page.

City of Harare is not selling an unwanted product/service, or one which people have an option of leaving or choosing a competitor’s product, they simply want to remind people to pay their bills, an obligation by the way, and creating an advert that reaches as many people as possible is a brilliant way of achieving this goal. What each individual who sees the ad thinks about their creativity or lack thereof, is up to the individual, but as long as you get their message, and yes, if you owe them anything, you were reminded that you need to pay up amid all the noise about the morality and social acceptableness of the advert. Period.

City of Harare managed to get Influential Zimbos or Twimbos to do a significant part of their work for them by sharing the ad, which naturally should drastically cut down their cost of dispersion: it is now unnecessary to buy advertising or space on the media for this same ad, it has been widely circulated.

The Advert has been widely shared and commented on, making it a successful viral campaign.

No publicity is bad publicity (not always and not for everyone) and the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Everyone is talking about you guys at the Sunshine City, Kudos to you.

So well done to City of Harare, but not all companies can afford this type of controversial marketing, so do not just copy and paste, you need a digital marketing strategy that fits your brand, not the Harare City type. If you want a fitting digital strategy, you can get in touch and we can plan yours, which should not necessarily be controversial, but can still go viral.

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How Zimbabweans can Choose Which Social Networks to Showcase their Products and Services

This post is inspired by a lot of discussions I have seen on a number of social media platforms, the latest being my (Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn) friend Nico Abote's post on his Facebook profile. He was celebrating the kind of connections he is making on LinkedIn compared to, presumably, Facebook. Nico, by the way, is a renowned videographer.

After Nico’s post, many of his Facebook friends came in with their own thoughts, he is one of the Zimbabweans with a high engagement rate on Facebook, I must admit, and this post was no different. Some of the comments led me to write this post and try to demystify the concept of which social network is better than the other.

There are too many Social Media platforms to consider, and I would advise anyone not to try too many, an average of 2 to 3 networks and doing them very well should be enough for most businesses and freelancers. The question that then comes is: How do I chose which 2 or 3 to focus on. And it is this issue that I will try to address here. In social media, it’s about quality, not just quantity. Doing two or three channels really well with consistent, highly engaging content that is reaching and interacting with your target audience is what will lead to conversion and customers.

I used to talk of ‘The Big 5’ in Social Media, that is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google+, but from now I will talk of ‘The Serious 6’, because Instagram has given reason to believe it must always be considered. Many people also want to talk of Pinterest, but personally I have never been a big fan of the network, and I’ve also realised that not many Zimbabweans use Pinterest. So for now I will leave it in my argument.

Who is Where?

Source: slideshare.net

Before you chose which 2 or 3 of these 6 you need concentrate on, you first need to know who your customer is, after answering this question, determine where this targeted buyer is found, and since there is no data specific to Zimbabwe on the demographics and usage of these social networks, we will use the international statistics, and accordingto a Pew survey in 2015:

• Facebook has wide, global usage, and surprisingly to me, fewer young people are staying active.
• Instagram is a favourite among teens and young adults.
• Twitter is home to many information junkies and tech savvy people (In Zimbabwe, it has become a discussion platform, especially from those who hate what the inept government is doing to our beloved Zimbabwe)
• LinkedIn is the playground for high income, educated professionals
• Google+ is a network with a predominantly older male user base (in Zimbabwe, we would just say male user, not OLDER male user)
• YouTube has an equal number of men and women, but men are more active users with wider preferences
• And though I didn’t want to list it, Pinterest has a user base which is 80% female dominated, most of whom are from a higher income background

Assuming these stats hold true for Zimbabwe as an individual demography sample, you now know where you are likely to get the most returns on your social media marketing efforts by targeting your personas.

What Content Do You Share?

For your content to go viral and have meaningful engagement, you need to post on the right platforms, written content performs differently with visual content on different platforms.

Written content has proven to be more effective on platforms that ensure readership. Whether it’s short or long, articles and blog posts get a lot of visibility and shares through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.

On the other hand, if your business has a lot of focus on physical products, going visual can open up endless possibilities for you. Facebook (yes, Facebook again), Instagram (and Pinterest and Tumblr and  . . .) are great for visually oriented social media accounts which are usually dominated by girls.

If you create or can create a lot of videos about your products or services, then you have to seriously consider YouTube. Whilst other video sharing sites like Vimeo and Vine have proved very popular globally, I am yet to ascertain their popularity and effectiveness with the locals, but you can still try them. Consider creating ‘How To’ videos, as they can attract the right type of people to your channel.

Your Industry

There is a general trend on the type of industry that performs better on certain platforms, and you need to choose wisely if you are to get the desired engagement and eventually conversion of fans into customers.

Here are some of the industry based trends across social networks:

• ·         Instagram — art, food, retail, lifestyle and leisure
• ·         Twitter — news, tech updates
• ·         LinkedIn — B2B, recruitment agencies
• ·         Facebook — Almost everyone, but few Business 2 Business companies
• ·         YouTube — Luxury products, DIY, Home improvement (How to videos)
• ·         Google+ — SEO, IT

Which would you take?

So whats the best network?

Whilst Facebook is the largest social Network, it can never guarantee you the kind of exposure you might need as a business, especially if your clients are other businesses (B2B guys). Its Newsfeed algorithm will mean you post can easily get lost in a myriad of other status updates and 'weekend at the bar' photos. However, it is the best for customer engagement and building long term relationships.

For products based companies and creatives like photographers and videographers, visual is the way to go, with YouTube, Instagram leading the way (you can put in Pinterest there). They will work well in your product promotion strategy.

Keep your LinkedIn profile professional, and do all the funny stuff on Facebook, just do not jeopardize you chances at anything

Twitter (My personal favorite) is interesting; it works well for most of these businesses. It is an interesting hybrid with active usage by everyone from teenagers to famous athletes and actors to professionals, and companies using it to reach both consumers and businesses. Twitter is also the best if your business is up for constant interaction. It has also become a great platform to run a support center without any hassle. Econet used to use Twitter very well to solve their customers’ problems, although this side of their business has since dropped down dramatically.

What other factors are important in choosing the right social media network? Respond in the comments box below.

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