Social Media Surgery Africa: Bringing Social Media to the People

Today was no ordinary day for the RLabs team as they launched the first African Social Media Surgery. The idea was to take Social and New Media to the public in an open space providing them with basic skills on getting started on this exciting journey. The launch was hosted by Vangate Mall in Bridgetown (Setting up of equipment above), Cape Town and 47 people actively participated by spending at least 15 minutes each with our Social Media Surgeons. These included people signing up for email accounts (gmail), Facebook as well as Twitter accounts. There were people also interested in sharing sites such as Flickr and Youtube with also the occasional person asking about blogging. Below we see Clive, one of our Social Media Surgeons, helping a couple with an email account that could be used for their small business.

Judging from the online buzz and excitement in the mall itself it cam as no surprise that we had people waiting in queues to see our surgeons. Fortunately while the public was waiting to see the surgeons we had part of the team giving basic Social Media 101 talks with the crowds and also distributing Surgery help cards to the public.

The major tools that the public wanted to know was how to setup Facebook and email accounts. What the surgeons also did was to show the public how they could access the same service they just signed up for via the Social Media Surgery on their mobile phones. The key element is for the community to be able to engage using Social Media without being affected by the barrier of connectivity or accessibility. Well done to the RLabs superstars for this great initiative and lets see more people engaging with Social Media to make a difference and to change lives in our communities.