The change in Zimbabwe’s presidency has seen change in many parts of Zimbabwe’s social fabric. The general behavior of society has been transformed along with transformation in government.
Freedom of speech is one of the areas that have witnessed significant change, especially on social media. Things that were previously unspoken about are now being said openly.
Zimbabweans seem to have found their voice on social media and have realized freedom of expression with regards to their feelings about the government and politics. Refreshingly, those in power, including the president, have also endorsed social media as a means of reaching out to the public, something that had never happened before
Creativity and humor have always run deep in Zimbabweans. Many times, we see humorous portrayals of political & social issues. I mean what else could go wrong? We might as well laugh about it. Right?
Because of this we have had very entertaining hashtags on Twitter and Facebook and one that impacted on everyone at the agency was the #Ginimbi challenge. When a Harare socialite decided to showcase his car, Harare responded by creating a challenge imitating him, however this challenge came up soon after our digital team decided to come up with a fun skit of their own, little did they know…
The post itself went viral in a short space of time, it generated a lot of traffic onto the Dicomm page recording over 100 000 organic impressions in 24 hours. Engagement shot up by 263% within 48 hours of the video being posted on our Facebook page.
The online buzz eventually got to one of the biggest radio stations in Zimbabwe who decided to run a poll with the winner walking away with an iPhone8 courtesy of #Ginimbi. Dicomm team stopped working – watched, voted, shared, liked, sent to other groups and watched Zimbabwe vote for the video created by the digital team and other Zimbabweans. The experience though, it was unmatched and something everyone at Dicomm will never forget. What A Time!
Some other interesting hashtags that have made rounds on Zim social media are :
#ThisScarf
#GogoChallenge
Some daring advertising agencies like ourselves have also taken some of these social media trends and used them in their communication to consumers so we say YES to freedom of speech!
That being said, Dicomm McCann is indeed OPEN FOR BUSINESS!
