Social Gorillas on Facebook

“Your new Facebook Friend: A Rare Ugandan Gorilla” writes Stan Schroeder about two years ago, kicking off with what I think was a brilliant idea that goes far beyond a mere Social Media Marketing ploy as – what it really does – is raising awareness – and this is what counts for so many endangered species today. And obviously not only for those… as we have recently seen in Egypt.

Watch the highly interesting snippet 3 I captured at the eTourism Africa Summit 2011 two weeks ago that explains the origin of Social Gorillas on Facebook and why they are such a success in terms of Visual Marketing Online.

Social Gorillas in your Lounge so to speak :)

Social Gorillas on Facebook

“Social Gorillas on Facebook” clearly gets gorillas out of the mist into the virtual limelight and peoples’ hearts as they can watch tons of live footage that give an almost real-time experience within the Bwini Impenetrable Forest of Uganda where around 800 mountain gorillas enjoy their freedom – and this right from their comfortable couches. Meanwhile, the dignified stars of the show observe daily soaps of “Mankind” – from a distance and definitely without beer and potatoes.

Visual Marketing Online

Visual Marketing Online is the current trend and literally drawing everyone in its ban, namely the marketing and advertising industry of course. Doesn’t everyone want some minutes of glory… glued into eternity?

The fact is that today’s digital cameras and mobile phones, especially iphone 4, enable almost everyone to shoot digital photos or video clips of acceptable quality and shoot them directly onto the web, be it YouTube or Facebook just to name those two. Whereby the quality isn’t even a criteria when it comes to capturing unique moments and events as we have seen in the case of the amazing tourist movie “Battle at Kruger”.

Accordingly, one of the clear messages at the eTourism Africa Summit 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa, was to never go out without our digital weaponry and always be ready to shoot. So the Wild West style ‘hands-up or I shoot’ motto changes into a sociable “Smile NOW as I Shoot!” scenario that may be funny – or perhaps not.

And if you don’t want to be shot? Do you have to wear a disclaimer-button “Don’t Shoot Me!” or a “no-shoot-chip” engraved into your skin or DNA in the future ?

Jokes (?) aside, here we can imagine how the virtual world is flooding our so-called reality, opening new business opportunities for virtual security or digital immunity LOL.

Attention: new niche lurking … the Invisibility Pill: ‘switch me off, Boetie’ and POOF! … ex and gone!

We know there’s no more privacy on the Internet… the question is: will we be able to escape … and if so, where?

You just never know what you get when the mist rises. . .