The community management section of the Bookmarks saw just one award presented on the night: excellence in craft – social media community management bronze. These emojis signify how the Cerebra team felt about their digital dominance in this sphere.

Shalom explains that their client, Vodacom was one of only two finalists representing community management as a whole, which he believes is indicative of the fact that community management is still seen very much as a service channel and not as a tool for conversation.

Cerebra on stage.

Explaining where they get it right on the Vodacom social media channels, Shalom says, “We're taking each the individual into consideration with regards to the engagement itself, while also servicing the customer.” He adds that many brands are still placing junior resources as community managers and fail to realise that these individuals are spokespeople for their brand.

You wouldn’t have someone straight out of college representing a brand on TV, radio or editorial content, so why do so on social media?

How they did it...

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The team behind the work, in addition to Shalom, include Matty Erridge as community management team lead as well as Brad Edwards, Zuleka Pukwana, Khutso Mahlape, Babalwa Nyembezi as community managers, with Moza Moyo and Khumo Mokgoko as after-hours CM and Roxy Van Eyk as freelance community managers.

Click here for the full list of 2017 IAB Bookmarks Award winners and visit our special section for the latest updates!