Our Soweto farmer
Meet our farmer

Our farmer's name was Ms Mathabo from Tladi, Soweto. Her farm was situated in the backyard of the local municipal offices in Soweto. Ms Mathabo was very welcoming from the very first day we met her. She is 40 years old and has 2 kids, an 18 year old girl and a 8 year old boy. Our first meeting with our farmer was in March, I remember she called us that morning to confirm if we were coming. She continued calling us up until we arrived at the farm. The first thing she said was, 'I am glad you did not get lost because this place is far from where you girls are coming from.' From that very moment, I knew we met a very caring individual and I was looking forward to working with her. 

  

That day she introduced us to her colleagues, they we were welcoming too. We kept in touch and Ms Mathabo suggested we keep in touch via What App because after we introduced our selves she must have picked up that some of my group members stay far from Soweto. Hence she suggested we talk via What App to make things easy as it was also a lot of money to travel to from Auckland Park to Soweto now and again.

What we did for our farmer

Above is one of our Whatsapp group chat with  our farmer.

A date for our second meeting was set and this was during our June holidays. Our schedule on this day was to help the ladies with ploughing. What a day it was! On the day Ms Mathabo together with her collegues organised ploughing material for us. When we got there, we did not waste time we went straight to work. As we took breaks, Ms Mathabo organised cold water foe us and we sat under a tree and we talked about each others backgrounds. We heard some inspiring stories from the old ladies behind their passion for farming. I remember very well one of the ladies telling us that her dream to work with young people so that she can pass her knowledge and skills on farming because she is old now and there isn't much she can do.

As we were working on the farm, we also noticed that there were people from the community who were coming to purchase the vegetables in the farm. This is when we suggested the idea to design a business card for our farmer. The idea behind this was so that Ms Mathabo can be contacted and customers could place orders so that they can be assisted faster when they get to the farm. We only designed one business card because Ms Mathabo is the only one with a cellphone.

She together with the ladies loved the idea! Lerato, one of my group members designed the business card and we took to the the farmers. They were really impressed and Ms Mathabo had no problem with printing it out her self.

Our Whats app conversation with the Youth leader

As we were going on with our project, we also had the opportunity to meet some of the young people from the community who were not staying far from the municipality offices were the farm was. We met a group of guys from the local church called Universal. The aim was to find people that will assist the ladies with the farm when were no longer available. Although there were some issues from the church because we had to first get the 'go ahead' from the senior Pastor of the church, we finally managed to get the go ahead and we met with the youth leader who then assisted us in organizing a group of guys to help with the farm. Indeed they went to the farm and assisted Ms Mathabo and the other ladies.

Be good, do good...

Above is the picture of myself packing the spinach that was ready to be sold

In conclusion, I really had fun working with the ladies. The experience was indeed overwhelming because we met and worked with people who were willing to assist us with everything we needed. Working with the elders is an experience in its self. Our farmer is passionate about education and she said this is also the reasons why she agreed to help the PR department by allowing students (us) come work with her.

Although we came from different backgrounds, especially with the youth of Universal church. The youth from the church were willing to go all out to assist us. This made me realize that every individual is important, whether you know we know each other or not. I hope that the relationship we created between Ms Mathabo and the youth of Universal is still on going.

My group members and in the background its me and Ms Mathabo.

Do we still need journalists in the age of social media?

Do we still them?

Most definitely! Although they can make our lives a living hell... Journalists play a vital role in the society by helping us make a sense of our world by providing news and information we need. Furthermore, journalists are the first people to get the news especially when a big story breaks.

Image: Journalists at Oscar's trial

They are able to get facts as they themselves rely on sources. I do not believe that journalists write anything and everything they hear, hence journalists rely on sources and conducting interviews. Just by writing anything, journalist can be sued for things like defamation, slander, libel and invasion of privacy. Who are sources and how relevant are they to journalists? Sources can be a person, a sort of documentation, or a publication that a journalist use to get information.

Has social media taken the role of journalists? I guess this is a question on everyone's lips. I believe social media has a 'sort of' influence on how people are updated with the latest news. But one can not get enough information by writing news 140 characters. As we all know that Twitter is the fastest social media network that people use to stay updated with the latest news. I believe we still need people who are willing to spend their time finding out news on our behalf and all we do is read. Journalists are able to provide us with that. We cannot honesty be depending on technology all the time. With things like 'Power shedding' and 'Network jamming', I do not believe we can solemnly relay on social media. Though it has such powerful influence on how easy news can travel, we can not relay on it 100 percent.

Where do people get their news?

• 59.5% TV news                                
• 28,8% Newspapers
• 27.8% social media
• 18.8% radio news 
• 9.5% other
• 6% other printed publication 

Image: NEWS FLASH...!!!!

Public Relations Practitioners and Journalists

As Public Relations practitioners, a relationship with journalists is a necessity. What do I mean? We all know that Public Relations practitioners maintain communication between the internal and external stakeholders. With the great benefit of social media, I guess Public Relations practitioner's job becomes easy. Social media has really change the world. I believe this is true, but like I mentioned above... we can not depend on social media all the time. Especially us PR people.

This is the reason why I believe journalists still play a role in our society. I am going to share briefly the relationship between the two practices. Public Relations Practitioners has to find was to reach out to its external audience and this can not only be done via social media. This is the part where journalists come in. What a Public Relations practitioner then do is write a media release and then sends it to a journalist to publish it. Journalists do not just write everything and anything, but I do believe if one has a great relationship with that journalist, one may find one or two media release being published. Likewise, journalists can also ask for stories from Public Relations practitioners. Say for instance there's a huge tender between a local organisation and an international organisation, obviously all journalists will want to tell the story first. But if as a journalist, one has a good relationship with a Public relations practitioner of that organisation a journalist may publish the story first.

Its not a "sin" having a relationship with journalists, they are humans as well. Hence it is important to get to know them. I believe organisations can benefit greatly from journalists Here are a few tips that I bumped into while doing research about the relationship between a PR consultant and a journalist:

• Get to know a journalist's job, they might even helping you as a PR consultancy with writing and ways of gathering news.
• Stick to deadlines, journalists want people who reliable as their job keeps them up to their toes.
• A relationship may also be built, by always introducing your self well. Moreover do set up meetings to meet with a journalist in person.
• Make sure journalists has your contact details.
• If you work for a brand, for an example Nike do give journalists goodies. It does not guarantee publicity, but its a thoughtful gesture. 

Image: PRPs and Journalists

The powerful role of social media in the digital age

What is Social media?

Social media are conversations that take place between individuals, mainly for social purposes. These conversations takes place online. Well, in simpler terms social media  is a platform that helps people engage with each other, whether is sharing pictures or videos online.

Image: Social media platforms 

Just so you know, I am a huge fan of Instagram! Anyways, back on social media...brands are adopting ways in which they engage with its customers via social media. Not only in terms of using social media as a communication tool, but as a way of  marketing and advertising.We all know that everything has its own good and bad, but for now I will only be focus on the 'good' side of social media. Brands and/or organisations that know how market their projects/ campaigns, take advantage of the influence social media has on individuals. 

For this part, I will be focusing on how South Africans are engaging in social media. Take for instance Facebook, apparently it has 71% of adults who access daily. And if this is the case, it may be an advantage for brands that are targeting adults who maybe of use to their brands or organisation. Secondly, the advantage of social media is that large number of people can be targeted, if brands consider going digital in terms of marketing their businesses. Lastly, customers contact details may be accessed by brands because Facebook for an example has customers' phone numbers. this can help brands and/or organisation have a two-way communication with their customers.

We Run Jozi... SA's most successful campaign

The second campaign that took South Africa by storm was the Nike+ Run Jozi marathon. The agency that was behind the success of the campaign was the VWV group. VWV group is a global brand agency, their services include Events production, Digital media (social/mobile),  as well as Video production. Mind you, this is only a few of what the agency does.

Image: We run Jozi

This was how the campaign was ran, ordinary citizens had to register on the Nike+ website if they wanted to be part of the race. This then drew a lot of 'traffic' to the Nike's website, which then gave the brand the power to take the initiative to their social media accounts. The the brand created an app called The Nike+ Running app that had chat features.

Image: Runners passes Mandela bridge

This was solemnly for runners socialize as well encourage each other for the big day. As the date for the marathon was approaching, registered runners had to join once more the Nike's+ Run Club at Nike's stores. This time around registrations were to help runners with ways of keeping fit and being ready the race on the 12th of October.

I simply adore how the Nike+ committee as well as the VWV agency took advantage of social media and used it to their full potential. Other brands should honestly adopt and keep up with the times! Moreover, the brand was able to engage well with its clients and as a result, clients were able to respond well to what the brand was trying to accomplish. The main reason for the campaign was to donate some of the money made during the campaign for the development of the Alex butterflies program. Once more I would like to give Nike #Two_thumbs_up for their campaign, not forgetting the agency that was the master mind of the campaign.