The fifth edition of one of the biggest conferences in Africa – Social Media Week Lagos kicked off on Monday, March 27, 2017 with over 150 events, 500 speakers and over 12,000 attendees. Amongst these speakers were members of the executive team from RED, Nigeria’s leading innovative media company.
Leaders of RED also featured at the #SMWLagos2017 including Chude Jideonwo, editor-in-chief of Y!/YNaija.com; Adebola Williams, RED founding partner; Isime Esene, managing editor of Y!/YNaija.com; Oluwasola Obagbemi, deputy chief operating officer, Red Media Africa, and Bukonla Adebakin, deputy chief operating officer, The Future Project.
The weeklong conference featured lectures, panel sessions, fireside chats and exhibitions providing ideas, trends, insights, networking opportunities and inspiration to help people and businesses understand how to achieve more in a hyper-connected world.
While describing the conference, Williams said: “The media has certainly evolved since the introduction of Information and Communications Technology. People now have the choice and freedom to say whatever they want and however they wish to; we are now in a generation where the people champion the narrative, tell the story from their perspective. This conference is very significant because it encourages interactions between advertisers, marketers, brands and ultimately the people. I’ll prefer to call it the digital age village square meeting.”
Obagbemi spoke on the topic ‘Perception and reality: Harnessing opportunities in digital journalism’, noting that verification was parallel to gate-keeping. She stressed that the ethics of journalism should not be compromised but must also be applied on social media. This comes as a rise in the number of fake news stories being diffused by ‘small’ blogs and influential users with massive social media following online.
Jideonwo moderated the panel discussion themed ‘The co-world transformative power of technology, content and commerce’ which featured the likes of Dr. Ken Oyeali Ikpe, MD/CEO, Media Perspectives & COO, Insight Redefini; Ose Osundeko, head, digital media, Media Perspectives; Frankline Ozekhome, pop culture strategist; Raphael Idu, creative director, Leo Burnett; and Chinedu Abili-Mordi, Head, strategic planning & innovation, HotSauce.
Williams and Adebakin spoke about ‘Rethinking communications for the public sector’ and ‘Strengthening youth participation in governance through digital gaming’ during their panel discussions and Esene delivered a lecture on ‘Online relevance versus honest storytelling’ hosted by Poise Nigeria.
