Tuesday, 3 March 2015

Supremacy of the digital trail


funny social media image sourced from google


Transition in social media

It seems we are turning out to being more social media creatures, all over people are constantly interacting online, known as the popular culture where there are no barriers social media cannot be denied its powerful role in this digital age.




  
Social Media cake source: Pinterest

We have moved from the days of Mxit which by the way used to be the leading social service in our country Relax I am not about to take you through a whole history lesson and now to instant messaging being BBM, Whats App and the new born We Chat. There is no hesitation that social media has had a massive impact globally. For you and I, networking has never been this convenient, we now can interact and engage in conversation, trends don’t sound so Greek anymore and what a catalyst for news and updates. For associations like the Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Motor Neuron Disease (MND) it drove online traffic, increased publicity and donations.


The Ice bucket challenge

In this digital age there is no such thing as ridiculousness, things you take likely can unpredictably go viral. The whole idea about the challenge is to throw
picture of someone taking the ice bucket challenge source www.shape.com

a bucket of ice over your head then nominate someone else, however the nominated candidate has to do the challenge within 24 hours, if not they will have to donate money to the ALS association-one can do both. This was to raise awareness for ALS being a disease where ones neurons die eventually resulting to these effects.


Spectator

Watching 3 Talk a while ago the topic was MND, the broadcast happened at the patient’s home, a man who once was fully operational in good form now laid in bed motionless facing life and death.Moreover faced with the excessive costs to getting medical attention of maintaining the disease. This story touched my heart and  and I felt awareness about the disease was just not enough.


South Africa campaigns
The Ice bucket Challenge started in America were celebrities took the challenge then uploaded their pics, videos and posts on various social networks.

ALS infographic sourced from pinterest


I was so glad when later the challenge hit South Africa. Celebrities such as Gareth Cliff took the challenge as it spread through out the country and though to some it was just an exhibition of their six packs Not that I’m complaining #drool and hour glass bikini bodies’ awareness was still raised for the association plus donations. IBC cooled South Africa making it one of the biggest social media campaigns.The influence of Social Media in the digital age can never be overlooked #SocialMediaWillneverDie #Interactivity #Virality #Business Benefits.

19 comments:

  1. I love the fact that the ice bucket hallenge went viral, however I do think that people starting doing it for fun instead of actually raising awareness for ASL because in reality this disease is very serious.

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    1. True Precious but let's look at the bigger picture here despite their intentions awareness is still raised for ALS as more people get to know about it

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  2. I like the fact that South Africa also decided to join in on the fun in creating awareness for ALS/MND. This was a great idea to use YouTube and other social media networks.

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  3. I like the fact that South Africa also decided to join in on the fun in creating awareness for ALS/MND. This was a great idea to use YouTube and other social media networks.

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  4. Yes koketso the fact that the challenge was fun and interesting it created a buzz on social media in our country

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  5. i like this campaign because it was fun but also played a role of making a difference as a way of raising funds. and it was all the success because of our social media platform.

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  6. Indeed Bongi people love challenges that make them laugh and are fun and that is why this campaign was just such a success and it really made a difference as funds were raised

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  7. its a beautiful form of insanity! what ever command it may be, as long as it trends on social media people are sure to part-take...purest form of the power of distant masses.

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  8. This bucket challenge got so much hype on social media but I just don't get why out of all the things they could have done to raise awareness they chose to pour themselves with water, but then again its for a good cause so I guess we can let this one slide.

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  9. social media is more like trends of fashion everyone knows and is active about it the campaigns it hosts they are all recent,big and successful everyone loves to trend i count myself in just case.

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    1. thanks Simpiwe true it is the popular culture of today we are constantly updated and can never miss out or be old school

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  10. true , i am so glad you talked about this kind of topic i was not familiar with it but now because of social media this Bracket Challenge reached me and social media makes it have to learn more about the issue.

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    1. i meant social media makes it fun to learn

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  11. I'm glad you have Thabile I love social media because it is informative as well and one can acquire knowledge

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  12. Yes it's true that social media are taking over. I can't even imagine my life without Facebook or Twitter. They have an important place in our everyday life.

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    1. Yeah Gloria we have really turned into social media fanatics its just crazy

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    2. Yeah Gloria we have really turned into social media fanatics its just crazy

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  13. but is social media accurate or a credable source for news?

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  14. Well Yes cause I mean take example Twitter its a network of live news and when there is something happening we will see it on the trending news # the only thing I can say when it comes to news on social media is that it does not provide in depth news because we are a media of just 140 characters only

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