New Media grabs gold for blogging excellence at New Gen Awards

New Media's Vodacom team also took the Silver award for Best Online Newsletter. Host Stephen Paxton announced the results in a virtual ceremony recently.

"This is a powerful combination of awards that affirms our team's strategy of producing and delivering the best tech-related content in South Africa," says New Media CEO Aileen Lamb.

The Vodacom now! blog supports Vodacom's vision and strategy of becoming a leading digital company. It has helped changed public perception of the company from a cellphone brand to a champion when it comes to customer experience using big data and the internet of things. The blog has also become the port of call for customers looking for how-to info, allowing them to fulfil many of their own service requests. As a result, calls to Vodacom's customer care line have dropped by many thousands, saving Vodacom around R110,000 per month.

Sunaina Parbhu, Vodacom portfolio manager: social media and content marketing, says: "We are passionate about creating engaging and meaningful content, which is why we are extremely proud that the great work done by Vodacom and New Media is being recognised and awarded. We are working on some exciting projects and look forward to receiving similar acknowledgement in upcoming award ceremonies."

These awards arrive on the back of an excellent couple of years for New Media's Vodacom team. Together with Vodacom's SEO specialist, they improved blog traffic by 25% from 2018 to 2019. The team also recently launched a podcast, Tech Talk with Vodacom.

The 2020 New Generation Social and Digital Media Awards finalists featured a record number of agencies, corporates and individuals, representing hundreds of SA brands. Vodacom stood out head and shoulders above the competition, also winning Overall Social and Digital Corporate of the Year.

Steve Smith, head of the agency division at New Media, says: "We're so proud to be this forward-thinking tech company's content partner and congratulate Vodacom on their excellent haul of awards."