PopiMedia, ‘that’ billboard, digital’s state of emergency: 5 Memeburn articles you loved this week

Take a moment. Breathe. You’ve made it to Friday and you’ve got the weekend to look forward to. Before you throw off those pants and crash on the couch though, take a look at what’s caught the attention of the Memeburn readership this week.

From a major acquisition, to opinions on the state of digital media and the latest incidence of social media furor to hit South Africa, these were the five most read articles on Memeburn over the past seven days.

5. PayU appoints ex-PayPal exec as CEO

Naspers-owned payment services provider PayU on Tuesday announced the appointment of ex-PayPal Europe VP Laurent Le Moal as CEO.

According to a press release sent to Memeburn, Le Moal’s role as CEO sees him join the Naspers management team to lead its payments business, reporting directly to Naspers’ Group CEO, Bob Van Dijk.

4. Digital advertising is in a state of emergency, and there’s no easy fix

“When last did you click on a banner?”

I am yet to get an answer to this question that doesn’t begin with a panicked expression, a hurried attempt to remember or make something up, and eventually the response: “yes but I am in the industry, so I am desensitized/uninterested/jaded etc.”. Think about that for a second, “in the industry”. I would assume that presupposed interest/caring/curiosity, yet even industry natives are ‘over it’. Digital advertising promised to be the answer to the need for measurement, the transparent visionary. But, somewhere along the line, it got lost. It got wasteful. And it got annoying.

3. 10 things you have to know about SEO & social media in 2016

There is a misunderstanding about how social media and SEO work together, whilst we know that social media does affect the search rank, nobody seems to understand how. Social visibility is only achieved by being active, engagement is key, but creating and posting great content that shares quickly is also only half the job done. One cannot simply schedule standardised posts to go out across all social networks.

The SEO and Social Media discipline is not just about creating and posting great content, it’s about promoting that content so that it achieves the results we are looking for. Consider the following when thinking about your social media and how to derive the best SEO value from it.

2. ANC MP sparks outrage with FB post urging people to burn #ZumaMustFall banner, flats [Update]

ANC MP Bongani Mkongi sparked outrage on Saturday after he posted a Facebook post suggesting that a divisive #ZumaMustFall billboard be burned down along with the people living in the flats behind it.

The billboard, which was erected in the centre of Cape Town on Friday, attracted criticism from a number of quarters. While some feel that the campaign is racist, others felt that the money spent on the billboard (its location is believed to be one of the most expensive in the city) could have achieved more had it been spent on social good.

1. Publicis snaps up Popimedia in R350m+ deal

Publicis’ South African buying spree shows no signs of slowing down. On Wednesday, the French agency network announced that it had completed an outright acquisition of Johannesburg-based ad tech company Popimedia in a deal which industry insiders say is worth more than R350-million.

Founded in 2007 by Daniel Levy, Ryan Silberman and Gil Sperling, Popimedia works predominantly in the social space, with the aim of helping clients maximise the value of their effort and spend within the social realm.