By Tope Adebola
Through a series of straightforward steps, audience
members at the Social Media and Elections workshop were encouraged to devise
their own social media coverage plans on the spot. Facilitated by Penplusbytes executive
director, and new Highway Africa Fellow, Kwami Ahiabenu II, audience participation
in this workshop was at peak level right from the start.
In a newsroom, some of the stages ofimplementing a social
media coverage plan successfully are defining anaudience; evaluating what
tools to use; and, monitoring progress and takingcorrective action.
“Now, I want you to give me examples of the use of social
media in elections,”
Ahiabenu said, opening up the floor for further audience
input. Ahiabenu spoke in an edifying manner, a teacher accustomed to conducting
training sessions and mentoring people. His tone was warmly rhetorical, “one of
them is the ability to, what? Connect with the candidate,” Ahiabenu said,
exemplifying the value of social media in elections from ordinary people’s
perspective.
He then proceeded to divide the audience into three
groups, and gave them free rein to brainstorm their own social media election
coverage plans.
The outcomes of the group work were fairly uniform,
showing how relevant and applicable such phases in social media planning are. The
group comprised Pearl Majola Nigel Mugamu (263chat.com), Georgina Asare Fiagbenu
(Senior Corporate Communications Manager, MTN Ghana), and Yandisa Sobahle
(Rhodes University), and had particularly keen insights to share about WhatsApp
and its application to crowd sourcing.
Ahiabenu cautioned. He had the room chuckling at a spicy example
of just how wrong these WhatsApp groups can go. Apparently, a rogue WhatsApp group member once posted a pornographic
image on an ultra religious WhatsApp group, causing a near collapse of years of
friendships.
Mugamu countered that WhatsApp groups can in fact be
self-regulating because they determine the topic, a time limit for discussion,
and most members adhere to these informal rules.
“That’s interesting, that’s a well behaved group,”
Ahiabenu laughed.
The general consensus was that the interactivity and
practical nature of the workshop’s content were the highlights of Ahiabenu’s
afternoon session.
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