#SMWF and #AppsWorld Africa 2011 – Thank you Cape Town
That’s Social Media World Forum and Apps World Africa done for 2011, a fascinating peak into the African social media marketing and apps industry space, made vibrant and given serious buzz by the enthusiasm of the people that attended.
Thanks to the 1000+ African and international programmers, marketers, experts and entrepreneurs that came down to get involved. Thanks to all our speakers and special guests, and thanks to everyone who covered the show through your blogs and on Twitter; hope you managed to catch a glimpse of your tweets up on the TwitterWall.
The top show tweeters deserve some recognition, particularly @MarilizeHowell for her staggering 320 tweets, over 100 more than her nearest rival, @clinton_lord with his highly respectable 210; and @DazMSmith taking third place with 196. You can still view all the top Tweeters and other TwitterWall stats online here.
It’s always daunting bringing a show like this to South Africa for the first time. But over the past couple of days we’ve met some of the leading figures around social media in Africa, witnessed an avalanche of enthusiasm and application.
Congratulations to the creators of the Trip Heroes concept, winners of the South Africa Tourism social media strategy workshop. This challenged delegates to come up with a social media marketing strategic plan around the opportunities and challenges faced by South Africa Tourism. Sony Ericsson kindly donated a prize for the best one. Unfortunately, no one liked M&G online editor Chris Roper’s tweeted viral idea, ‘win your name on the side of an elephant’. Bad luck Chris.
Anyone who was lucky enough to attend the Nokia-supported WIPjam in the Apps World developer track will surely join us in thanking everyone involved in delivering the sessions with such enthusiasm.
Enthusiastic also were the Momo Jo Berg team when it came to the official networking cocktail party down on the city waterfront. An outbreak of planking, apparently a current South African craze, also saw delegates in various places around the show lying flat on the floor or propped up with a stool.
Thanks also to the person who spent the whole two days, and possibly night we’re told, dressed as Google’s little green Android; no doubt fuelled by the steady supply of strong coffee being liberally handed out by the nice people on the Nokia stand.
Despite some of our team travelling to Cape Town with only flip flops and summer dresses, expecting sunshine but arriving to rain and cold of almost Scottish proportions, it’s been a great few days. Be interested to see what’s round the corner for social media and apps industry development in and around South Africa over the next twelve months.