Teleios Consulting is organizing a Consumer Engagement workshop themed: “Harnessing the power of social media for brands”.

The workshop is structured to be highly engaging and seeks to bring together bloggers, internet marketers, social media and brand communication professionals to chart the course on how the internet is changing consumer habits, expectations and how business professionals and entrepreneurs can leverage on these mobile and digital platforms in meeting their business objectives.

As new media platforms are emerging, what better time for Nigerian brands to leverage on these platforms to bring their brands online.

Participants will benefit from the knowledge and experience of some of Nigeria’s finest social media strategists including:

Dayo Adefila – Chief Operating Officer at HotSauce

Yinka Olaito – Lead Consultant at Michael Sage Consulting

Franklin Ozekhome – Business Director at Insight Communications

Loy Okezie – Editor of TechLoy.com and Digital Content Producer at NEXT

Deola Kayode – Managing Partner at Teleios Consulting

The event holds this Thursday, July 21, 2011 at Korbis Building, 18/20 Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos. To register to attend this event, visit this link. Free, but limited spaces are available.

Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of ThisDay Newspapers, Mr. Nduka Obaigbena has been invited to this year’s G8 summit along with technology, internet and digital media leaders.

The event tagged “The Internet: Accelerating Growth” is scheduled to hold in Paris, France from May 24 to 25, 2011. According to the letter of invitation sent to Obaigbena, the e-G8 Forum’s Chairman, Maurice Lévy said:

“This will mark the very first time that information technology formally takes a place on the agenda of a summit of heads of state – a recognition of how critically important these sectors are to sustaining and accelerating global economic growth…This will be a unique gathering of the world’s top Internet and digital leaders, not only from across the G8 nations, but further afield. Through our debates and discussions at the e-G8, we can and we must bring our reflections, ideas and experiences directly to the G8 leaders.”

Lévy said Obaigbena was being invited to the historic event because “it is vitally important that your voice be heard during the Forum. Only a true diversity of opinion can guarantee a good outcome.”

Image courtesy of Daniel Rosenbaum/The New York Times

The Co-Creation Hub Nigeria has announced the 6 shortlisted ideas for their Tech-in-Governance series this year.

In February, the organization called for entries of ideas for web/mobile based tools that can help transform citizen participation in Governance in Nigeria.

Here are the 6 shortlisted ideas for Tech-in-Governance:

Idea #1 – Project Watch

President Jonathan would be campaigning in the United States for the first time since he flagged off his presidential campaign around Nigeria.

As such, The Jonathan Diasporan campaign would be broadcast live on Ustream 14th March at 7pm (PST), that is on 15th March, 3am (Nigerian time).

The President would be represented by his Senior Special Adviser on Strategy, Oronto Douglas (pictured above), who is an environmental rights lawyer recently listed as world’s most influential thinkers.

Announcing the event, the President posted this on his Facebook page a couple of hours ago:

As earlier mentioned, I am taking my detailed plans for Nigeria to all Nigerians including those in the Diaspora and my SSA on Strategy, Oronto Douglas, will represent me at a policy briefing in California. It will be broadcast live on this page and streamed at http//www.ustream.tv/channel/diaspora4jonathan at 7pm (PST) while questions will be entertained by teleconference: 17124320075, Access Code: 538351.

The event is scheduled to hold at the Courtyard Marriott, 5555 Shellmound St Emeryville, CA.

If you’re in Nigeria, you can watch the event live via Ustream on the Diaspora4Jonathan channel at 3am, on 15th March.

About 750 votes were counted and after an editorial judging process, the following winners emerged (based entirely on number of votes) as the best use of social media in Nigeria.

Here’s the full list of winners at Sowambe Awards (Nigerian Edition).

Best Social Aggregation Tool
Tweetdeck

Best Micro-Blogging Platform
Twitter

Best Social Networking Site
Facebook

Best Social Media Job Site
Jobberman

Best Social Media Thinker/Influencer
Adeola Kayode (www.adeolakayode.com) (Winner)

Dayo Adefila (1st Runner-up)

Abasiama Idaresit (2nd Runner-up)

Best Social Media TV/Radio Station
The Beat 99.9 FM

Best Social Media Activist
‘Gbenga Sesan

Best Social Media Site
Twitter

Best Social Media Newspaper
NEXT (www.234next.com)

Best Social Media Politician
Babatunde Fashola (Winner)

Nuhu Ribadu (1st runner-up)

Goodluck Jonathan (2nd runner-up)

Best Social Media Celebrity
Banky W (Winner)

D’banj (1st Runner-up)

MI (2nd Runner-up)

Best Social Media Personality
Nmachi Jidenma

Best Use of Facebook (Personal Brand)
Goodluck Jonathan

Best Use of Facebook (Corporate Brand)
Samsung Mobile

Best Use of Twitter (Personal Brand)
Eldee The Don – @eldeethedon

Best Use of Twitter (Corporate Brand)
Arik Air – @arikair (Winner)

UBA Group – @ubagroup (1st Runner-up)

GTBank – @gtbank (2nd Runner-up)

Best Use of Youtube (Corporate Brand)
Oceanic Bank

Best Ad Campaign on Facebook
The Experience 2010

Best Digital Media Agency
Wild Fusion (www.wildfusions.com)

Best Twitter Trend
#lightupnigeria

The winners have now qualified for the Sowambe Africa Awards 2011 which is scheduled to hold later this year.

Sowambe Awards will continue with the South African edition starting with nominations on Thursday, March 10, 2011.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Today, the news broke that Twitter has re-assigned the account @gtbank to GTBank Plc, one of Nigeria’s leading banks.

While it’s still uncertain, the account was likely registered by a squatter, but has posted little or no updates.

According to GTBank, they have been following up with Twitter over time and recently had to pay several visits to the Twitter Headquaters in San Francisco.

Before now, GTBank used the twitter handle @gtbankonline for posting news and updates about their activities and products.

Since 2009, when GTBank embraced social media, they have been at the forefront and can easily be described as one of the best corporate use of social media in Nigeria.

In January this year, GTBank’s MD/CEO, Tayo Aderinokun hosted a 15-minute live Q&A webcast via their social media channels on Facebook and Youtube (watch it here) where he talked about GTBank and answered some questions from their customers and the online community.

In fact, they were recently nominated in 3 different social media award categories at the Sowambe Awards.

Why Not Verified?

GTBank’s acquisition of the twitter account proves that they want to be in the social media space for a long time.

But one wonders why Twitter is yet to verify @gtbank’s twitter account (as at the time of writing this), given that representatives of the bank have visited the Twitter HQ.

According to information on Twitter’s site:

Twitter’s public beta version of account verification is no longer available. After a long period of manual testing, we’ve closed public applications. We have removed our public-facing verification request form. In the meantime, we’re still verifying some trusted sources, such as our advertisers and partners. If you’re one of our partners or advertisers, please follow up with your account manager for details.”

I think Twitter realised too late that they should be charging a fee for verifying trusted accounts.

But the question is: Will Twitter eventually give @gtbank verified status?

As the 2011 presidential campaign gradually kicks off, a new mobile application for President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign has been released.

The app built by Emerging Platforms Limited is available via Blackberry and iPad/iPhone devices, but also allows other internet enabled devices access.

With the Goodluck Nigeria 2011 App, you can get the latest news about his campaign, read his agenda and scorecard, watch videos, listen to music and join the movement.

The app also allows you to send a direct message to President Jonathan, and also view messages sent by other users.

If the President hasn’t been overwhelmed by an average of 2000 comments on his Facebook page, I’m guessing that he won’t be if he uses this app.

But will the President respond to the messages?

I’m not sure, but his regular Facebook updates have made references to comments by his fans. Although, some commenters feel that his words should be backed up by actions.

While some of his Facebook fans have been literally blocked from making comments on his page, it leaves one wondering how he intends to interact and connect with a youth audience that he wants to identify with for his campaign.

You can download the Goodluck Nigeria 2011 mobile app to join the transformation movement.

Thanks to @spacely for the tip.

In an election year, there’s a need for smart ideas to be injected into governance and technology has a key role to play.

Tech-In Governance is organizing a 48-hour event that would gather ideas, people and digital tools aimed at creating novel web & mobile solutions to transform citizen participation in governance.

Inspired by SICamp, Tech-In Governance would bring together some of the best software developers, designers, marketing communications experts and governance professionals to turn the selected ideas into tools and social start-ups (with a working prototype) in 48hrs.

The organization is currently looking for novel ideas for web/mobile based tools that can help transform citizen participation in Governance in Nigeria.

The key criterion is for all ideas to use web/mobile to improve the participation of Nigerians in how Nigeria is governed.

If you have a great idea for citizen participation in Nigeria that meets this criterion, you can submit here.

Your idea will need to be focused on addressing the specified need (citizen participation in governance), and technology must be central to its purpose and it must be novel (something that’s new and never been done before in Nigeria).

The event scheduled for 24th to 26th of March, 2011 would provide an open space and a living lab with the aim of transforming a set of early-stage ideas into prototypes in 48hrs.

Participants will be organised into teams to work on each of the best 6 ideas.