Kaunda Selisho

By Kaunda Selisho

Journalist


Social media weighs in on failed #ShareTheBay campaign

Sponsors reportedly feel shafted after putting up tens of thousands of rands to ensure the trip went smoothly.


After failing to get their money’s worth after a failed influencer-driven social media campaign, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality may just get their money’s worth as #ShareTheBay is now the talk of the town,

According to a thread posted on Twitter using information gathered from a Herald Live article, sponsors for the municipality’s tourism month initiative were left fuming after they reportedly provided twelve celebrity influencers with an all-expenses-paid four day trip to the city in the hopes that they would post about it, make it trend and entice more tourists to visit the city.

https://twitter.com/BobaniMayor/status/1171150563251314688?s=20

Local names like Linda Moeketsi, Mbau, Nyovest, Katlego Selekane, Babalwa Mneno, Nwabisa Joka, Tebogo Lerole, Carpo and Tumi Mohale, as well as international influencers Sincerely Ward, Chanita Foster and Allana Foster, were just some of the people tapped for this campaign.

However, according to the Herald, only five of them – Mneno, Moeketsi, Mohale, Selekane and Foster – met their end of the bargain by posting about where they were.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2MuF28gOsl/

Leading the charge on holding the group to account is public relations officer and copywriter at Mantis, Mandisa Magwaxaza.

“I always work with contracts, and with my contract with the municipality, I stipulated what we would do as Mantis. “We made it clear that on [Monday’s cocktail] evening we expected them to be posting and we gave them the hashtags. I put drops in the five rooms that we had sponsored which had a rhino mascot from Community Conservation Fund Africa valued at R250 and a letter stating our expectations as well as all the tags,” Magwaxaza told the publication.

She says that upon checking the progress of the campaign on Tuesday, she noticed that most of the group were not meeting their deliverables to she tried to fill the gap by repurposing images they had already taken and posted on the trip.

She alleges that Moeketsi then blocked her on social media after she reposted his images from the trip and tagged him and his fellow influencers.

The thread has been trending for most of the morning and has prompted social media users and influencers to weigh in on the project and why they believe it failed.

https://twitter.com/RealLifeGold/status/1173130882862997504?s=20

https://twitter.com/MrGwej/status/1173141247357333506?s=20

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