MIKESTOPFORTH

In a recent Direct Message exchange with Casey Monteiro (@Casey_ek_se) on Twitter, he referred to the social media presence of a prominent brand as “lipstick on a pig”. The brand he was referring to was FNB – the bank I’ve just switched my main account to based almost entirely on the advocacy of my peers [...]

I mentioned in a recent post that people love to complain. We are far quicker to pick up on the mistakes of brands and incidences of bad service than we are to compliment and laud when brands exceed expectations. This is human nature. As a direct result my clients typically freak out when presented with [...]

There is much being said about how brands should engage with customers in social media. Words like “authenticity”, “transparency”, “immediacy”, “personability” and others are bandied about as we as consultants, together with our clients, figure out the rules of content and community online. This is a good thing. Brands tend to forget that platforms like [...]

[Disclaimer: Turner Broadcasting and TCM are Cerebra clients] I love film. I actually studied film for a year or so before, ahem, dropping out, but my passion for the medium remains. My favourite past time, when I have the time, is to pop past the Absolutely Fabulous DVD Nouveau store down the road and pick [...]

As Cerebra expands its client base with big brands including the likes of Vodacom, Samsung and Toyota, we’re learning valuable lessons about what works when it comes to engaging customers on Twitter. No two brands are exactly the same. Every brand has a different message, culture, strategy and even audience. There’s no arguing that Twitter [...]

Twitter is abuzz today with retweets and jokes in response to the press release published on the ANC Youth League’s website by spokesperson Floyd Shivambu titled “Youth League concerned by creation of fake Twitter accounts in the name of Youth League President Julius Malema”. Smacking of the Metro Police department’s slamming of the now infamous [...]

Update – Woolies DM’d me on Twitter with the following response to this post: interesting read, the decision wasn’t purely made because of our SM channels. And it wasn’t leaked to News24. thanks Yesterday Twitter and Facebook were pumping with debate around a News24 story which reported that Woolworths “(had) taken a business decision to no [...]

I’m speaking at the Strategic Media, Branding and Public Relations seminar hosted by ASM Communications and Training Solutions, alongside an impressive array of guests including IBM’s Nicholas Maweni, Nokia’s Tania Steenkamp, Fearless Executive MD Terry Behan, television presenter Freek Robinson, broadcaster Adrian Steed, journalist Louise Marsland, entrepreneur Greg Mason and more this coming Wednesday. The [...]

In the hope that they will one day evolve into something of substance, I have recently been scribbling down notes on some of the ideas I have around marketing, advertising and communication in general. Bear in mind I share these thoughts purely in my capacity as a consumer – I am no marketing, branding or [...]

One of the more interesting people (and public speakers) I met at SXSW earlier this year was a chap by the name of Lane Becker (website and Twitter). Lane is one of the co-founders of Get Satisfaction – there’s plenty cool info on what Get Satisfaction does here. His presentation included a reference to a [...]

The Mother City’s very rad blogging community has rallied around the Cape Town City Ballet in it’s moment of dire need. Sue Rutherford and friends have put together a website and campaign to encourage people like you and I to give a little bit towards saving the arts in Cape Town. We are appealing to [...]

Not only has Dion Chang forged an enviable reputation as one of South Africa’s leading fashion authorities but since breaking away from that industry and into trend forecasting and commentary a few years back, he and the brilliant team at Flux have set the benchmark in strategic thinking for the future of and in South [...]

Earlier this year I wrote about how impressed I was with the RAMP foundation and their efforts regarding the 2009 Net Prophet conference. Considering that, and how blown away I was with the second annual Bookmark Awards evening held last night at Movida in Jozi, it’s clear that digital in South Africa is definitely growing [...]

Last night marked the 44th iteration of the 27dinner social networking movement, held at FTV in Village Walk. With the dinners reaching unparalleled popularity (numbers peaking at 170+ on the attendance list at 27dinner.com), it is becoming increasingly challenging to organise and execute an event that now has some pretty high expectations around it in [...]

Over the past three years I have spent a great deal of time presenting to schools, church groups, NGO’s, government and more on the subjects of social and mobile media. Public speaking is a wonderful privilege and a fine art. I am not nearly the speaker I could be, but I have some thoughts I’d [...]

Matthew Dawes is organising Mobile Web Africa 2009 on the 13 and 14 October at the Michelangelo, and has kindly offered a range of freebies and discounts for me to promote to you, the cream of South Africa’s technology crop! I will certainly be making an effort to attend – the speaker line-up and agenda [...]

I recently raved about the NetProphet conference I was privileged enough to be invited to speak at, and now the video is up for your perusal, comments and random abuse :) I realise, watching this, that I have a dangerously dry sense of humour that may not always serve my best interests… hmmm. Oh well, [...]

If you’ve spent any time at all reading anything I’ve published on this blog you’ll know SA conferences companies are my own personal bugbear.  They suck.  Typically they pick up on a popular trend, and with little to no knowledge of that space, whether it be opencast mining or social media, strive to make as [...]

Justin is, as I write this, launching Afrigator‘s newest innovation to our fellow African geeks at BarCamp Nigeria in Lagos. Gatorpeeps is a micro-blogging platform, not unlike Twitter or Pownce (which died), that makes it really easy for existing Afrigator users to connect with other Afrigator users in 140 characters or less, and with all [...]

In July 2008 UK-based retailer Aldi launched a campaign with the tagline “Don’t change your lifestyle, change your supermarket”. Sweet. Here’s a vid of one of the campaign ads: At the same time last year, here in sunny SA, ex-creative director of BBDO Cape Town, Andrew Brand, and founding partner of Berry Bush, Lewin de [...]