Quick tools for social media managers

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Being a Social Media Manager could either be fun or tedious considering how one does the job.

Meanwhile, from my side of the world, I bet Social Media is fun for work when you know a couple of multimedia tools to make work easier (point of correction, I didn't say the case is similar everywhere in Nigeria).

These tools may not be the essentials things you need to get your work done faster on your social media platforms, they only help better illustrations of your intended information to your audiences.

Using these tools to tell your stories or to portray the organisation you represent makes it friendlier for readers to relate and also remember the story you are telling.

Some of these tools include: Timeline JS3, Storymap, and Riddle.

I am going to talk about these three even when there are more tools. However, permit me to state here that these tools are better when used on Google chrome browsers because of saving your content in Google drive.

To start with, Timeline JS3 is the recent version of the product. It is a tool that enables you narrate incidence in sequence according to the period those events took place. For instance, I did this on the abducted Chibok Girls in Nigeria when it was about 365 days of their no return.

You can emerging how much information I had on the abduction after one year and how difficult that would seem for me to tell all that took place within the region in the name of insurgency as well as peaceful protests held by NGOs and campaigners.

Somewhat similar to this is Storymap. It is used to tell your stories in a very friendly manner. It includes the use of locations.

For storymap, you can map out areas where your offices are located to your clients in a very friendly and interactive manner.

You could as well map out areas of interest to visitors of your blog or website. This map is called a story map because it helps you tell your stories with few words but more of interactive multimedia contents.

The last for this session is Riddle. Riddle is a tool that helps you put up a quick poll or survey which is good to engage you readers or site viewers especially on trending topics or topics of interest.

Sometimes, you need to remind your viewers or clients of things that happened in the far past which are yet significant today. Please not that Riddle is not the only poll or survey tool, there are a couple of others, but this is seemingly the most user friendly of all,

Using these for social media content creation will help transform your career for good. Note that you would o more be contented with just sharing stories on Social Media and be called a Social Media Manager. No, there is more to do.

Till we meet again, I am David Lawal,
Social Media Executive,
The Nation Newspaper, Nigeria

This is an invite

I like to invite the general public to join me on social media through Twitter. To do this simply Follow @davidblawal here.

I am much of a learner myself and would be glad to learn from the online community believing that the World Wide Web has maade us all of one family and I can learn from you regardless of distance and tribe, region or nationality. Love you loads

Ten things not to say to a writer

WhatsApp introduces mute, mark as unread options

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Ever got tired of WhatsApp messages from friends especially while workload is much or late at night when the only sure thing is sleep, good news is that the instant messaging application now has provision to help handle that.

The Android application PacKage (APK) has had a very fruitful and active day going through no less than 5 updates in the span of 24 hours. The app’s developers introduced a series of new options and seem to be fixing bugs with successive iterative updates from v2.12.189 to the most recent v2.12.194.

According to an APK website, Android Police, the most significant change in this series of updates is the new custom notifications settings. When you open a contact’s or group’s details page, you’ll see a new Notifications box below the Media one.

In it is the option to mute the chat for 8 hours, 1 week, or 1 year, as well as extensive custom notifications. These let you pick a specific tone, vibration length, light, popup notification, as well as the call ringtone and vibration.

Another addition to the app is the ‘Mark As Unread’ feature. Tap and hold on any conversation and you’ll be able to mark it as unread, which switches its status to green but doesn’t affect the read messages status inside the chat or its chronological rank among your conversations.

The significance of such is that it could serve as a visual reminder when you want to get back to someone later.

And finally there are two new changes in the app’s settings. First is a Low data usage option for voice calls, useful when you’re on a limited or slow data plan. Second is a small hint to Google Drive backups.

Under Account, Network usage, you’ll see Google Drive backup usage tallied along with the app’s media, messages, and calls. There’s still no way to trigger a Google Drive backup — the option was added several months ago then removed — so this could be a sign that Drive backups may be coming again soon or that someone on the developer team forgot to clear out these options before publishing this apk.

One interesting thing about WhatsApp is that every couple of weeks, the team surprises its users with new features, and keeps on refining them and improving the app’s functionality.

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How to successfully run a blog

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When it comes to creating, owning or managing a blog, whether you write for money, popularity or as your passion might not be very significant, but one thing every blogger, writer or website publisher will agree to is that they write because they want someone to read.

While a few of us post stories and leave it at the mercy of Google to dump it on the computers of global readers across the world, some others endeavour to publicize using social media platforms. Option (B) works especially for those who have a robust social media presence.

Meanwhile, for those who depend solely on option (B) above, writing great articles and making them available through your social media platform may not just be enough if the platform, your blog, itself refuses to play it's role.

However, besides all of these, we are going to be talking about some salient things to do with your blog that would help improve your blog traffic and as much keep readers coming back.

1. BLOG TEMPLATE/ DESIGN

It is pertinent that you carefully choose your design from the various samples provided by Google's Blogger Team. So you have to work on the design. Choose a clean template that doesn’t confuse the visitors. In addition to that, be sure to feature your most popular posts in a separate section.

The About page is very important, as well as adding your Google+ account which enables you build followers early enough.

2. NEXT IS BEING SOCIAL!

Now being able to share your blog post on Social media comes next because mere dependence on only Search Engines (SE) may not generate enough traffic for you.

Majority are familiar with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Of all, Facebook and LinkedIn do well in generating traffic to your blog or website. Other platforms only help in the publicity that the blog pr website needs. One of that is Twitter.

Many twitter users will only retweet (RT) or favourite your post as acknowledgment. Yet you need them to register the presence of your blog.

3. CAVE A NICHE

What this simply means is that you should endeavour to be different from the crowd. There are too many News Blogs out there. Don't dive into the sea of News blogs and start struggling to put your feet on ground. Even if you do, your head might be buried in the sea.

From research, when you pay attention to one field of study, it enables you study and also expand your scope of knowledge in that direction.

If you can be different and be consistent, you would soon be identified as an authority in that area. Typical example include Linda Ikeji and Tolu Ogunlesi.

It does not matter what you are writing on, just endeavour to be specific and consistent. For instance, if a person get's tips on how to start a gas burner from your blog, be sure same person(s) are likely to come back for how to out out the fire.

The same goes for when a person learns how to be genuinely born again from your blog because you post religious contents, same person(s) may also come back to learn to stay happy with God without the burden of religiousity.

In essence, sticking to a particular niche is one of the most important ways to make your blog popular.

4. ADD SHARING BUTTONS

Almost everyone who use the internet usually have their social media accounts open while they do other things. Thus, make sure you add a button for readers to share your posts. Just like twitter fans retweet, blog or website audience like to express their love for a particular post by sharing it. Then make it easy for them to share because as they do, they are publicizing your blog.

5. ALWAYS USE TAGS

Often times than usual, bloggers post stories but forget to use tags. What tags do is that they help position your story or article for search engines. You may not remember to use tags but Google will always remember to check for it while people attempt to crawl blogs or websites.

There are many more tips on improving your blog or website. you may suggest a few too.

Having issues with implementing any of these? Check my contact below this page. Thanks

Youtube hosts its Nigerian users

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Naijas-Craziest, Ariyike Akinbobola,Toke-Makinwa, Olisa Adibua

It was a night of glamour as YouTube hosted top Nigerian YouTube content creators at a dinner to mark 10 years of wonderful video sharing experiences.

The event, which took place at the Intercontinental Hotel and Resort on Victoria Island, Lagos, saw the likes of Olisa Adibua, Toke Makinwa and Ariyike Akinbobola among others.

Speaking at the event, ‎ veteran Broadcaster Adibua recounted how he got inspired while growing up in the United Kingdom (UK) and how he got a contract job with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA 5) at the age of 17 when he arrived Nigeria.

He further noted that he contributed to the success stories of many Nigerian star artistes, naming popular musicians like Eldee, StyPlus, D-Banj among those he helped to boost their careers, especially through Big Brother Nigeria.

The co-founder of Storm Records and one of the chief brains behind Big Brother Nigeria however, advised young broadcast on-air-personalities (OAP) thus: “When you are on radio for instance, you have an instant power. I’ve several times paid fines to the National Broadcasting Commission. But why do I have to pay this much to them, when they are richer than me.

“I tell young people to read a lot, because not reading wide is their problem. They don’t read. They believe presentation is just all about sitting in front of the camera. If you must succeed in this business especially in the global scale, you have to read about different things going on within your locality and around the world.

“If you want to interview a person, it is just wise for you to do a background check about the person. So you need to read to be ahead of your interviewee.”

For Toke Makinwa (of TokeMoment) her passion for what she does has been the backbone of her continuity.

On TokeMoment, she runs a regular monologue on everything from self-improvement to relationship issues in a loose and funny manner.

“When I stated out on YouTube, I was not aware of the financial benefits of using YouTube. I would just upload videos and be happy that they get good number of views. It was much later in 2013 that I got to know that I could monetize my contents to earn money.

“I find joy when I run into ladies at shopping malls outside the country and they identify me and can easily relate their issues with me. It gives me a lot of joy. You know, usually, people like to talk to someone who does not know them about the issues, TokeMoment has filled that space.

“Uploading a new video every Wednesday has not been easy for me but I also know that the key thing about YouTube is consistence and I have kept at it. I must confess that YouTube has been a huge source of blessing to my life,” she recounted.

Meanwhile, for Akinbobola, lawyer and mother of two, YouTube is an avenue for people to gather a lot of experiences and remain loyal to who they are.

“On YouTube, I talk about relationship dynamics. I have in the past done videos on YouTube on how to spy on your nannies, I have also done videos on parenting.

“But you know what, the views I get on my channel aren’t up to 5, 000. But when I don’t box myself, and do freestyle videos, amazingly, I get over 100,000 views.” She stated.

Akinbobola, who does videos on sex and relationship, further said that her contents had been greeted with stream of criticisms, stressing: “Well, my channel is not for babies, but for adults.

“Most times when I talk about sex, people tend to look at me as if‎ it’s a no-go-area, But as a married woman, this is something I do, even, people who are not married do this. So, why do we shy away discussing it?”

Speaking on the event, Taiwo Kola-Ogunlade, West Africa Communication and Public Affairs Manager said the event was aimed at leveraging the 10th anniversary of YouTube to spotlight Nigerians who in spite of all odds are constantly sharing content, and by so doing, are building their own fan bases.

“Some people still think only highly trained individuals or people with access to funds can create content and run YouTube channels. it is our hope that by showcasing the inspiring work that these individual creators are doing, we are able to help inspire more Nigerians to begin to share more video content. With you need little or no start-up capital.

“Since the launch of the Nigeria domain of YouTube, in December 2011, YouTube has grown to become one of the top online destinations for Nigerians looking for inspiration and creative expression.

“Nigerian creators have also taken advantage of the power of large number of local and global viewers getting on the platform on a daily basis.

“Today, Nigeria entertainment content like Nollywood movies and music videos by local Nigerian artists are being consumed across the world, and are thus generating tens of millions of views.

“There are now more than one million channels earning revenue through the YouTube Partnership Program, in more than 30 countries, and it’s exciting to see more Partners coming on board in Nigeria too.

“Globally, partner revenue across YouTube has increased by 60% over the past year and partner revenue from mobile ad sales has tripled,” he maintained.

It would be recalled that in 2014, YouTube views in Nigeria increased by 78%, while views of Nigerian content increased by 95% – a testament of the role YouTube is playing in the export of Nigerian content.

The video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States has become the go-to destination for video footage on the web.  The volume of content unites people from all walks of life through video.

The night tagged: “YouTube & the Stars event” also had group content creators on YouTube likeNaija’s Craziest and TechCityNG.