Dance teacher bags R100 000 for being "most influential influencer"
An innovative way of raising publicity for the recent Sid Sriram Concert with a competition to find the person with the biggest reach across the entire social media universe has seen a winner land the R100 000 cash prize.
Concert promoter Woodmark Events SA teamed up with Tamil Business Warriors (TBW) to engage with the modern digital world to increase the show’s ticket sales.
Durban attorney and modern dance school owner Leona Dean was adjudged the Most Influential Influencer after her video clip of locals impersonating a Sid Sriram song scene from the movie Pushpa went viral over multiple social media platforms.
“When I heard about the competition, I worked on a short video clip and posted it on various social media channels. I least expected to win.
“I am thrilled that I was able to influence more people to attend the concert which was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” said Leona.
Woodmark Events director Reagan Moodley said: “We were very aware of how effective Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can be to reach out to people and hence we ran a competition to find the person with the biggest social media footprint.
“We tested the power of social media on new and uncharted markets by attracting as many social media influencers as possible to enter a competition with prizemoney of R100 000 cash to find the Most Influential Influencer.
Participants in the Most Influential Influencer contest were required to produce inspiring, insightful, and captivating content and subsequently build a substantive fan base within a time limit. Participants had to engage in research pertaining to Sid Sriram and the forthcoming concert.
“Sid Sriram is a household brand throughout the South Indian diaspora. However, in South Africa, South Indian music is a niche market.
“In a novel exercise, we wanted to harness the power of social media influencers to reach the thousands of fans of Sid Sriram,” said Moodley, adding the competition also gave the youth and rookie social media users an opportunity to participate, with the possibility of a first-time influencer producing a post or reel that goes viral and walking away with the R100 000 prize.
Participants in the Most Influential Influencer contest were scored by using the following criteria; number and quality of posts’ views, likes, and shares.