Did they get anything right? Yes, but another
question is, did the wrong outweigh the right? Maybe it did but it also depends
on how you see things.
From the 23rd to 27th of
February it was a week dedicated to the advancement and gathering of digital
heads, industry players from both the mainstream online marketing sector and
from the general purpose sectors ranging from banking to government.
Social Media Week 2015 was tagged “Upwardly Mobile -
The Rise of the Connected Class”. The topic came timely and to me this is the
most interesting theme ever selected in the history of the event. The venue was
no doubt a great pick.
The Landmark Event Center had a spacious parking
space sitting adjacent the Oniru Beach now reclaimed as part of the Eko
Atlantic City.
Without wasting much time I’ll quickly start to
highlight and elaborate on all that went wrong with the event.
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SOCIAL MEDIA WEEK WASN’T SOCIAL MEDIA
FRIENDLY
Being part of the support team that worked with the
main organizers and the organizing partners “Dragon Africa” I expected that our
support service should have included manning an uptight Webteam where Live
Tweets, real-time postings, blogging, file sharing (Image & Short Video
Clips) YouTube videos, live streaming and anything social media that seeks to
promote, updates and inform the world about all that went down while they
happen without a second delayed would be set in motion but in never happened, sake
for This Presence House Church that ran a live stream of their session LIVE
from their church and yet posted it on YouTube afterwards the case would have
been worse.
If you had gone online during the last edition of
Social Media Week 2015 in search of real-time updates, or by virtue of work or
migration you couldn’t attend any of the sessions trust me you wouldn’t find
online any valuable information or record of how the sessions went either then
when it happened or post-SMW2015. Worse is that, SMW2015 did not even trend on
twitter while the event lasted. My question now is, how social was Social Media
Week 2015 when after the event I can’t access a single clip of any of the
sessions on YouTube, a video sharing social media platform?
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DETRIMENTAL EXCLUSIVITY
I work with non-arguable one of the biggest
broadcast outfit in Lagos as a digital marketing strategist and severally I
tried to hook up a media partnership with SMW2015. With eleven radio stations
across Nigeria, two Television stations and a daily sport print outlet we are
positioned as a powerhouse that could add a lot of impetus to the event but my
overtures and that of my colleagues were turned down. And from all reports I
got, this was the second time we were turned down by the organizers of Social
Media Week.
After digging deep, I realized we were turned down
twice because of an exclusive media right given to Beat FM, a right given based
on friendship between the CEO of Dragon Africa owners of the SMW rights for
Lagos and the CEO of Beat FM. This is a non-strategic friendship that’ll decrease
the popularity of the SMW brand and identity.
To lack tact is to bring triviality into business
and brand related issues. To limit the longevity of a brand is to first limit its
channels of expression and these the organizers of Social Media Week are
currently toying with reasons why public knowledge and media presence of Social
Media Week is relatively zero.
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THEORIES WITH NO PRACTICALS
It was a common fact that all that was said and done
at the 2015 Social Media Week were all theory based. It was a talk, talk and
talk affair… yea, some may argue that, that’s what it should be but giving some
practical sense and direction to the Master-classes would have been so great.
How about showing in real-time the master-class audiences how to create a
Facebook pop-up on their personal blogs. Information’s like this and not just
talking the talk all through makes the whole session gives back with direct
benefits. DIY’s, “How to’s” and many more practical sessions in my opinion will
boost the overall purview of the event.
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UPWARDLY MOBILE OR…
I suspect this theme was picked with a huge intent
to bring to fur the realities of the mobile sphere as it’s apparent in the
globe. With HTML5 supporting both web and mobile and the endless capabilities
of more recent mobile devices, I sure expected too much. But what about a
situation where a bank sponsored session could not just talk about how their
banks have enhanced mobile banking and the new sphere of social banking. All
the topics and sessions actually drifted from the year’s theme.
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However, the event put together was a huge success
by organizational standards but by definition of social media, theme and
innovation it was a sincere mishap. I pray the organizers will rather see my
article not as a witch-hunt but as an insider’s (industry) constructive criticism.
Finally, I thank the organizers’ for the opportunity
to volunteer and serve the social media community during the week. See y’all
Next year…..
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