CliqAfrica’s Excellent Social Media Report on Ghana and My Reactions

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I have read an excellent social media report: 2015 Ghana Social Media Rankings was launched by CliqAfrica in collaboration with Avance Media, Dream Ambassdors, TV3, 233livenews, Cape 360, Enter Ghana and Gonewsgh. The report summarized social media follows, likes, and interactions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for many different sectors such as hotels, telcos, public figures and more.

My top insights were:

  1. Top in the Ghanaian personalities  category was Yvonne Nelson, an actress who was behind the #DumsorMustStop vigil. This possibly shows that engaging in political issues is, despite what many say, good for your celebrity brand.
  2. If to judge politics by the social media ranking of “public figures”, Mahama is more popular than Akuffo-Addo.
  3. University of Ghana ranked well in both the “brand” category and “university” category, but as the breakdown was shown, its rival the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology had many more likes both on Facebook and on Twitter (where University of Ghana is not even present). What UG scored on was engagements, but I wonder…was that weighting fair in this case?
  4. Telco Airtel came out on top, although MTN and Vodafone have larger market shares. Similar to above, the ranking came from engagements.
  5.  Radio stations JoyFm and CitiFm came out neck to neck with Joy on top. Similar to the telco situation, Joy is seen as the market leader.

I also liked that runners up for next year were listed (Ashesi!) and that transparent tables of numbers were included for each category.

Reading the social media report, I actually wish I had been involved in it as I thought it to be well-executed and timely. Now brands and organisations in Ghana can see how they rank in social media compared to others in their sector. I believe social media trends can also at times precede on the ground happenings. Brands not present in the report should see this as a wake-up call.

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Sunday Reads Nov 29

sundayreads

  1. Enough of aid – let’s talk reparations by Jason Hickel.
  2. Cucumber Agua Fresca – recopy of the lovely Mexican drink i had in Sand Diego.
  3. Everything about Tanzania’s new president Magufuli, for instance Magufuli scraps Independence day celebrations (BBC) and Bah humbug in Tanzania as president cancels Xmas cards (Aljazeerah).

Inspired by personal role models, Ory Okolloh Mwangi and Chris Blattman, I want to share articles I read with my followers on a somehow regular basis. I hope to make Sunday Reads a weekly feature to be shared here and on Twitter!

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Sunday Reads Nov 15

sundayreads

  1. How Ghanaian food changed my life.  “I loved the fresh grilled prawns and fish. Given my familiarity with San Francisco sourdough, I quickly grew fond of the steamed fermented corn dough known as kenkey, eaten with the fiery sambal “shito” (“black pepper”) made from pounded dried shrimp, dried fish, and dried chilis. The mangos were to die for. African yams?—?boiled, mashed or fried?—?easily supplanted potatoes, and don’t even get me started on the versatile plantain. The one-pot soups and stews comforted me, and I discovered the joys of colorful chili peppers hot enough to make my nose run.”
  2. It’s not the religion that creates terrorists, it’s the politics. “We buy into the radicalisation hypothesis because we want evil to be mysterious and other; something that has nothing to do with us.”
  3. On data poverty and New York Big Data. ” The release of open data, to him, is a powerful way to give New York City residents a sense of who they are, what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, as well as the strengths of their neighborhood so that they can work together to address quality of life issues. “Neighborhoods that don’t have data, that don’t understand data about themselves as a neighborhood, then they can’t begin to suggest to their representatives on city council, state and otherwise, the things that they need to make themselves better,” Ra Mashariki said.”
  4. When H&M came to South Africa and insulted every one. “When fashion blogger Tlalane Letlhaku commented on Twitter saying that “most, if not all your posters in store have no black models” and to “please work on that to appeal to everyone,” the response was “H&M’s marketing has a major impact and it is essential for us to convey a positive image”.”
  5. For Slow Scholarship: A Feminist Politics of Resistance through Collective Action in the Neoliberal University. “Our concern involves the ever-increasing demands of academic life: the acceleration of time in which we are expected to do more and more. The “more” includes big tasks, such as teaching larger classes, competing for dwindling publicly funded grants that also bring operating money to our universities, or sitting on innumerable university administrative committees. It also includes the constant stream of smaller requests demanding timely responses, such as quarterly updates to funding agencies, annual institutional review exercises, and pressure on us as knowledge workers to stay on constant alert through the demands of social media.

Inspired by personal role models, Ory Okolloh Mwangi and Chris Blattman, I want to share articles I read with my followers on a somehow regular basis. I hope to make Sunday Reads a weekly feature to be shared here and on Twitter!

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Sunday Reads 8 Nov

sundayreads

I had a week in the sick bed so did plenty of reading. Maybe most importantly, I found “Bad Feminist” by Roxane Gay and read those essays with a wide grin. But I also read:

  1. The Decay of Twitter by Robinson Meyer. I think I like to read stuff like this that makes it sound important what happens to a social media network.
  2. Entire editorial staff of Elsevier journal Lingua resigns over high price, lack of open access by Glyn Moody. Interesting development in the world of academia.
  3. Beasts of No Nation and the child soldier movie genre by Dr. Noah Tsika. A great critique of a film many are talking about including the very important fact of the media shadow Netflix (but also iTunes film, Spotify etc) shed on West Africa.
  4. For Slow Scholarship: A Feminist Politics of Resistance through Collective Action in the Neoliberal University. Loved this!

“Our concern is not the difficulty juggling the standard academic triad of research, teaching, and service; we recognize not only that different institutions prioritize these differently, but that they need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, our concern involves the ever-increasing demands of academic life: the acceleration of time in which we are expected to do more and more. The “more” includes big tasks, such as teaching larger classes, competing for dwindling publicly funded grants that also bring operating money to our universities, or sitting on innumerable university administrative committees. It also includes the constant stream of smaller requests demanding timely responses, such as quarterly updates to funding agencies, annual institutional review exercises, and pressure on us as knowledge workers to stay on constant alert through the demands of social media.”

Inspired by personal role models, Ory Okolloh Mwangi and Chris Blattman, I want to share articles I read with my followers on a somehow regular basis. I hope to make Sunday Reads a weekly feature to be shared here and on Twitter!

Continue Reading

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