I have always heard gators were dangerous, but boy have I had fun playing with this one.

(In case you haven't already figured it out, that's me up there)

I first learnt about Gatorpeeps from Oluniyi David Ajao’s review of Bar Camp Nigeria 2009 (which I really should have attended but for the most inevitable of reasons)- WORK! ..

Anyways, GatorPeeps is essentially a micro-blogging service that provides a platform for Afrigator users to connect with other “like-minded African users” through short updates and community interaction.

It basically works like most other micro-blogging platforms, featuring a status update box and a public timeline.

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The Status Update Box

The status update box allows you keep your friends… err ….  updated with what you are currently doing by Saying It Loud!

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Public Timeline

The public timeline (just below the status update box) allows you view your friends updates, and has a really remarkable “Friends Blogposts” feature which allows you to toggle between your friend’s peeps and their latest blog posts so you can actually keep track of what they’re blogging about.

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It doesn’t end there

Gatorpeeps offers an array of features which make it safer to play with
According to the Afrigator blog, Gatorpeeps would be extended to an SMS-based mobile offering to cater for users who wish to “use their mobile phone as their primary device”.

If only that were all.

They’ve also added some really, really, REALLY cool tools to the mix, my favourite of course being the Post it to Twitter tool which essentially allows you to dual-post to Gatorpeeps and Twitter via a really simple setup process.

HEY! There’s more.

Gatorpeeps is going to be developed at a very fast rate. We have lots of plans for where we want to take it and we’ll be moving like a Boeing to get there. Some of our future development includes:

• Mobile web front-end
• Mobile apps for Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone and Android
• SMS integration
• Extending Community functionality
• Smarter ways to share links & photos via Gatorpeeps
• Plugins & Widgets for all environments
• Closer integration with Afrigator
• API Access (oh wait, that’s done)
• API Documentation

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Man I’ve really got to hand it to Justin, Stii, and the rest of the gang.
Gatorpeeps really is the bomb.

And you there! Africa’s talking, Are you? Hit us with a couple of comments and let us know ok?

Don’t forget to follow the D-Tech Blog on Twitter, and yeah Peep me up a line or two. You’d most likely be hitting me up on Twitter as well. Sweeeet !!!!

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At the beginning of the year I did a review on Global IT trends for 2009, and in that review I highlighted the growth of social media in 2008, drawing support from Chris Crum’s article on “the year in social media: 2008“. I also echoed the Baseline Mag’s prediction on the expected growth of Social Networking in 2009:

…. Social Networking will continue to expand in customer relationships with brands and corporate team building efforts as ways to help the bottom line. Organizations are increasingly looking to next-generation social networking tools to conduct sophisticated business intelligence and analytics. In many cases, they are mining data and looking for trends and patterns, such as which salesperson has the relationships to pull off a deal or which customers seem to have the biggest influence with others online

It’s only been 4 months since my review, and already it’s pretty clear that social networking is on the rise. Sites like Twitter, Linked In, StumbleUpon, PerfSpot, and of course Facebook have grown even more popular, making major headlines around the globe (sometimes for all the wrong reasons)- not to mention newer social networking tools which have been popping up all over the web.

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Social Media as a brand building tool

Most people still see Social media as just a place to hang out and see what your friends are doing. They just don’t realize what a powerful marketing tool the world of social media offers their businesses.

Social media offer more than just an opportunity to stay in touch with friends and colleagues, they also provide a cost effective platform for product marketing and brand building, and indeed the popular social networking sites, in terms of marketing, offer an extremely large target-audience, often running into hundreds of millions.

Facebook for instance, has seen its membership rise from 175 million in March, to a little over 200 million in May, and it allows you “create a public profile that enables you share your business and products with these 200 million plus users.

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Legacy social media such as blogs, and newsletters also serve as handy marketing tools. Blogs have literally been in existence for over a decade, and still play a huge role in market development. They give you an opportunity to build relationships with customers, and those relationships, of course, can amount to much better sales.

Similarly, online forums- the original social networks- are still extremely relevant. They provide you a perfect opportunity to know exactly what your customers and prospects are thinking. The levels of interaction they provide can assist you in creating a proper direction for your online campaigns, and should be worth considering.

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Making Social Media Work For You

An integrated social media marketing strategy can help your business increase brand visibility, improve customer loyalty, and gain important insights about the markets you serve.

Social media marketing is the possibly the most effective way of generating traffic, and as such the importance of social media as a marketing channel should never be underestimated. It effectively compliments your other marketing strategies, and is highly sustainable.

How so?

“Social communities can be a great source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are already receiving from search engines. While you can’t easily increase your search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily controlled through strategic marketing.”

Social Media news sites let users post links to news articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other web content. Then other site users can vote for that content, potentially sending it to the front page of the news site where millions of web goers are likely to see it and click through.

This is particular true for sites like Twitter, where users can access public timelines of other users, without neccessarily having to be friends with them (or follow them in case). Practically all the major news and web content providers are on twitter, including; Google, CNN, and BBC.

Social media channels will help your business grow by creating a community of supporters who (if nothing else) would recommend your products/services. It is common knowledge that word-of-mouth has and always will be crucial to marketing success.

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Are you using social media as a marketing strategy?

Leave a comment and let us know how effective is has been for your business. And hey, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/dtechblog

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Okay, I have seen (and heard) a lot of weird stuff lately, but this definitely tops the list….. completely hilarious! Twitter seems to be at the top of the web agenda lately, and even the celebrities are Twittering away. But ever wondered what “Twittering in real life” would be like?

Apparently someone has, and he decided to put it to the test. Watch Dan take his Tweets to the streets….. Sweet!!

Enjoy;

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