Digital media training for local and provincial government
Social Weaver has provided face-to-face and virtual digital media training and consultation to a range of government organisations, including:
- Eastern Cape provincial and local government communicators, under the auspices of the Eastern Cape Local Government Communicators Forum, SALGA, GCIS and the GIZ
- Mpumalanga provincial and local government communicators, under the auspices of the Mpumalanga Local Government Communicators Forum, SALGA, GCIS and the GIZ.
Social Weaver also provided training on social media engagement and virtual meeting technology and etiquette for councillors, traditional leaders and supporting officials.
“The facilitators organized a very useful workshop ever which is going to assist us as government Communicators.” – Sphamandla Dlongwana, Engcobo Local Municipality
“Great initiative, continue to do the work you do for the betterment of our citizens at the end of the day.” – Lwando Helesi, GCIS.
Interview with Tebogo Teffo, Dr JS Moroka municipality
Sol Plaatje Institute: Essentials of Digital Media Management
“I would like to thank the organiser and our facilitators Mike and Steve for such an empowering course they created for us as publishers. It was really worth attending and an eye opener.” – Thembisa Mjiba-Makasi, Dikelethu News
“This is a very high quality learning product. I have been working in the field of facilitation and adult education for some time, and being a student myself can be frustrating. This course is well designed and presented, and left me feeling empowered, stimulated and inspired.” – Ryana Johnson, Media Communications and Advocacy Officer, Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University
“As much as I thought I knew social media, I do not really know everything. I now have a lot of knowledge on how to grow the social media platforms.” Baloi Stella, Stokvel Talk
“The course teaches you to be innovative and to think outside the box in order to build successful online media business plans.” – Maurice Okore, Mobile Media Manager of The New Vision, Uganda
“A simple and clear course that provides a pathway to innovative thinking. Don’t know why we didn’t think like this before.” – Jennifer Platt, Managing Editor, Heat Magazine.
Digital Storytelling training with Project 90by2030
“Michael and Steve really enlightened us at Project 90 about the potential of integrating social media tools into the work we do – there is so much more to the Facebook post and the tweet than meets the eye. We found the two-day workshop incredibly helpful especially the time that we had on working to put the knowledge we gained into creating short video clips. A great team-building exercise with many valuable gems that we will most certainly put to good use!”. Hin Wah Li, Communications Manager.
Mobile Journalism training with Cape Town TV
“The team at CTV loved the MOJO training workshop. It really open our minds to what is possible with the world that we carry around in our pockets. It was great to see how easy it is to produce great content with a smart phone, a few gizmos and some free apps. All this time we thought we were resource poor only to find that we are rich! We are all super motivated to implement a MOJO approach in our production mix at CTV. It’s already happening and there’s no turning back”. Karen Thorne, Director.
Mobile Journalism training with Philanthrophy Leadership Network
“This is a course that provides you with valuable information and practice to produce engaging content for your social media platforms. It was an inspiring and fun day of training and obviously hugely beneficial to our network.” Hilda Gertze, Coordinator,
Twitter training at Independent Newspapers
“I went from being fairly overwhelmed by Twitter and a bit of a non-fan to now wanting to explore it and use it more.” – Gabi Falanga, The Star
“I enjoyed the training so much that I have signed up for Twitter, and I’m ready to put the knowledge I got to good use.” – Silindokuhle, The Star
“You guys were great. You know how to keep your audiences glued. I have to recommend you guys on your interaction abilities. That is so cool.” – Kabelo Chabalala, Pretoria News
“Speakers were great, patient and spoke clearly. They gave us examples, made us try tweeting, which I think was pretty good.” Zenande, iSolezwe
Digital convergence training at SABC newsrooms
“The focused training was very successful, so much so that at the end of the session teams were using the tools demonstrated in the training sessions. After training staff were motivated to get involved and file their stories to social media.” – Ismail Jinnah, SABC News Research and Policy Analysis Unit, Durban.
“A big thank-you for bringing this to us in the Eastern Cape. Our Facebook page is doing well – beyond my expectations! There is a buzz of new beginnings in the newsroom.” – Deidre Uren, Regional Editor, SABC TV and Radio News Eastern Cape
“Thanks Michael – you’ve put us on the road of a new era with new demands. The training has been empowering.” – Kenneth Makatees, Regional Editor, SABC TV and Radio News Western Cape.
Social media in health communication at the Discovery Centre for Health Journalism:
“Social Weaver made all the difference to our recent workshop on health communication in the digital age. They know their Snapchat from their Instagram and lots more beside. They helped the attendees think hard about constructing a coherent social media strategy, and being digital in ethos and spirit rather than just as a box-ticking exercise. They know how to train so that people feel involved and included — everyone tweeted afterwards that it was one of their best learning experiences in this field.” – Professor Harry Dugmore, Director of the Discovery Centre for health Communication at Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies.
Social Media Bootcamp, jointly hosted by Makana Apps Factory, iNeSI’s Eastern Cape e-Skills CoLab: ICT for Rural Development and the Eastern Cape Information Technology Initiative (ECITI)”
“Steve and Michael demonstrated how to keep an eye on exactly how your social media platforms, and the content items you publish on them, are performing. Delegates learned how to stay on top of their game by spending more time on creating contagious content and less on things that free services can do while they sleep.” – Sibukele Gumbo, Siyakhula Living Lab
“Having been someone that comes from a disadvantaged background with no access to such technology advancement, this really helps me to know how to use social media to my benefit and for the future as a journalist in training this bootcamp will help me a lot.” – anonymous participant
“As a young person, I am always looking for ways to make money and my mark in the world. Why not do it through something that I love like the Internet and social media. [The course] shows one how to utilise the advantages offered by social media and related tools for business/organisation promotion, etc. Essential toolkit to promote e-astuteness.” – anonymous participant
Social Media strategy training with Parapax Tandem Paragliding
