blog
Here you will find the genius, insightful, sometimes random musings of the Cerebra crew. Everyone who works here blogs so the topics are often varied but they’re always worth reading. We also take requests so send in your topics or share your thoughts in the comments.
Creative Director - No Vacancy
Submitted by IanRodney on Thu, 2012-09-06 09:13
Many agencies within a similar space to Cerebra make use of a creative director. This person is responsible for the company’s creative output, including ideation and oversight of all creative processes. And while bucket loads of creativity is required at any agency to successfully deliver client objectives and campaigns, this is not a position that currently falls within Cerebra’s organogram.
At this stage we have chosen to instead employ a creative ‘directive’ at Cerebra. This is not a single role for a lone ranger, but rather a responsibility that we instill, develop and foster within every one of our staff members.
Our Identity Part 2: The Community Lifecycle (or what we do)
Submitted by Mike Stopforth on Tue, 2012-09-04 13:24
Cerebra’s tag line is ‘We are community’ which refers not only to the culture fostered within our company but also through our role as curator of our clients’ communities. In our last post Our Identity Part 1: The Cerebra Mission Statement and Manifesto (or who we are and why we exist) we spoke about our mission statement and manifesto - the answers to “who we are” and “why we exist”. In this post we’re going to talk about “what we do” – the lifecycle that all of our clients’ communities go through before reaching maturity and self-sustainability.
Our Identity Part 1: The Cerebra Mission Statement and Manifesto (or who we are and why we exist)
Submitted by Mike Stopforth on Wed, 2012-08-29 10:23
A few weeks back members of the management team at Cerebra got together to discuss how we could better integrate two particular departments within the business. What started as a simple discussion about a business process resulted in some extremely constructive debate and discussion around how we position our company to staff, stakeholders, clients and the market in general.
Zunguz, Your Finance and Facebook
Submitted by Alex de Coning on Tue, 2012-08-28 14:29
I doubt you’ve heard of ZunguZ yet. Don’t fret, if they deliver on their value proposition, you will soon. Essentially, Cape Town based ZunguZ has developed the first micro lending and money transfer application on Facebook and according to co-founder Robert Sussman, the app is more secure than a credit card transaction.
Confessions of a Content and Community Manager: Method in the madness.
Submitted by Reece Jacobsen on Tue, 2012-08-28 09:03
So there I was, chatting to a high school buddy and catching up on the past 6 years when he turned and said, “So you just update a status, send a tweet and get paid! Hook me up with a job.”
His sarcasm wasn’t appreciated. If it weren’t for him putting on 20 odd kilograms and living with his mother, I would probably have felt the need to defend myself. Instead, I let the heathen have his small victory while I quietly contemplated all it is that I do.
Here’s a day in the life of a content manager:
New Client Announcement
Submitted by Cerebra on Wed, 2012-08-22 11:05
Cerebra is excited to announce that Woolworths will be joining the team from September 2012. Although Woolworths currently handle their social media in-house, and host very successful and pages, they saw the need to expand on that communication and talk to the community on an individual level. With that objective in mind, they called on Cerebra to assist them in developing an influencer engagement program. Cerebra will also be facilitating a qualitative reporting system using Online Reputation Management.
Welcome to the Cerebra community Woolworths!
Tweeting versus experiencing
Submitted by Tiisetso Tshetlo on Tue, 2012-08-21 09:37
As children, we were always told not to bring our gadgets to the dinner table, that it was “rude to be busy with something else while someone was trying to talk to you” and “quality face time is more important than conversation with people who were miles away”. With social media growing as rapidly as it has however, times certainly have changed.
Cerebra’s CEO has this to say, “It's a little bit like saying a hundred years ago you can't have telephones in offices because the ringing will distract people. It's [social media] a part of life these days.”
Buying Twitter followers, yes or no?
Submitted by Jacques Du Bruyn on Thu, 2012-08-16 14:58
Twitter is growing exponentially globally. Users are starting to realise that there’s a real currency on Twitter; it’s called credibility and influence. What makes Twitter the home of credibility and influence is that you can’t force people to follow you, it’s not as easy as sending a friend request. We don’t look at someone with 2500 friends on Facebook and automatically assume they have influence. We know they sent out quite a few requests.
However, there’s an ever-growing anomaly with Twitter followers vs. credibility. A booming ‘Twitter follower’ industry is growing under our noses without us even realising it.
5 Things We Learned Building Cerebra's Offices
Submitted by Mike Stopforth on Mon, 2012-08-13 14:23
It’s been 18 months since we moved Cerebra into new offices in Design Quarter. We’re quite proud of our spot – our clients love coming to see us and our staff love the fact that we’re accessible and in the middle of a shopping centre that offers multiple lunch options! 18 months is about enough time to figure out what we did right and what we did wrong, and seeing as we’re applying those lessons to the current expansion of our awesome work space, I thought I’d share our learnings with you too.
Content and Community Q&A (Part 2)
Submitted by John Beale on Tue, 2012-08-07 14:50
To continue from last week's post Content and Community Q&A (Part 1) where I chat to two of Cerebra’s Content guys, Reece Jacobsen and Leyash Pillay, here's part 2:
6. Wait, so let’s be honest, have you ever had to ban a fan, and why?
R: I’ve had to ban more than one. Even though I said earlier I relish the challenge of changing a rant into a brand plus, trolls will still be trolls. It’s like Alfred from the Dark Knight said… “Some people just want to watch the world burn”. I’m a patient guy by nature, but even I can get called a C#$^ one too many times.
