Hello people..New Week New post!So I was part of organizing a meet up/networking event last December. Here is the recap.
Post BBCL Meet Up PRESS RELEASE
The most talked about
Blogging/Social Media/Networking Meet Up Event recently held in Cameroon was
organized by the Bold
& Beautiful Camer Ladies
(BBCL) group which
was established with the intention of bringing together young, dynamic,
ambitious and professional Cameroonian ladies who have been very active
worldwide in promoting their business activities, mainly on social media. The
BBCL group consists of various professionals, entrepreneurs
and bloggers from all works of life. The BBCL came together for what was considered the most
anticipated Social Media/Networking Meet Up Event on December
30th, 2014 at Le
Méridien in Douala, Cameroon.
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| Exhibition Sightings |
The BBCL event
noticeably had a big turnout of over 120 attendees including major Sponsors
namely; Gold Sponsor – Baileys and Bronze Sponsor – Madiba Consultants. This
group of Bold and Beautiful Camer Ladies proved their networking power is
higher than the norm by obtaining a good number of Other Sponsors and Media
Partners, all of whom provided services and/or technical support during the
event in one way or another.
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| Event Brochure |
The 1st
BBCL Event was not only aimed to foster networking between young professionals,
entrepreneurs, bloggers, media and entertainment personalities and corporate
sponsors, but it also initiated a unique strategy not typically seen in
networking events in Cameroon, by providing not only networking opportunities
but an educational and informative overview on the following:
·
The importance of the utilization
of Social Media to Bloggers and Entrepreneurs
·
The successful impact of social
media to Entrepreneurs on enhancing businesses
·
The importance of collaboration
between Bloggers and Entrepreneurs and businesses
In
addition to providing information on social media and ways to better enhance
one’s business, this well planned event also provided opportunities for
entrepreneurs, business owners, companies and sponsors to showcase their
products as vendors, meet with the BBCL team, exchange (business and blogging) ideas,
educate and to create awareness about the different activities, perspectives
and importance of blogging and Cameroonian women on social media.
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| Event Brochure |
Highlights
of the event jumped off with a formal introduction of the BBCL Organizers by
Adeline Sede –one of the BBCL Organizer’s (Founder/CEO of FabAfriq Magazine, a
Fashion & Lifestyle Magazine), a presentation on “Blogging & Effective Collaboration with Businesses and
Entrepreneurs” by Mbole Ekaney,
a US based Blogger and the Creator of ‘THE HOTJEM’, a Fashion and Lifestyle Blog
and a very successfully interactive panel discussion, led by several panelists namely;
Anrette
Ngafor - BBCL event Organizer (Founder/Designer for Liiber London), Mbole
Ekaney - BBCL event Organizer (Founder/Editor, THE HOTJEM, a Fashion &
Lifestyle Blog), Yefon Mainsah - BBCL event Organizer (Founder/Editor,
IRepCamer, a Lifestyle & Entertainment Blog), Tchepowe Siewe
(Contributor/Editor Ndengeh, a Music Blog), Ifaanar Qualar (Contributor/Editor for
Tiptopstars) and William Takor (Contributor to several entertainment blogs). The Panel
Discussions was moderated by Hilda Awambeng - BBCL event Organizer
(Founder/Editor, MammyPi, a Fashion & Lifestyle Blog). The Panel
discussions which went on for almost 90 minutes surprisingly sparked huge
debates and constructive criticism about blogging and social media in Cameroon
and highlighted the difficulties Cameroonians faced with it. Although the panel
discussions were informative, it further confirmed the need to have had such an
educational networking event.
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| Panelists: Anrette Ngafor & Ifaana Qualar |
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| Yours Truly & Steven's Rastafari chic, Daphne Njie |
According to Nadine Tonguem
of Urban TV and the Creator/Editor
for Empower Success in Africa (ESIA),
“This event helped enlighten its audience
from wider spectrum of life, some of the development of blogs and lessons about
blogging and how to blog, not to forget advantages to entrepreneurs and
Business”.
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| Event Brochure |
Other comments were made during the panel discussions, one by
Joan Ngomba, a Nigeria-based Cameroonian who
is the Head of Celebrity Category at pulse.ng and is the Founder of
D'CODED TV Show. She suggested that creating content worth reading will slowly build
up readership as people will search for keywords frequently used in your blog
or website’s content and titles and come visiting to see if you have the
information they need.
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| L-R: Hilda Awambeng, Joan Ngomba, Wax Dey, Sarah Simo |
Other highlights to the
BBCL event were performances by popular Cameroonian Artists Daphne Njie who
sang her famous song –Rastaferi, Wax Dey
and Daddy Black. As if that were not enough, the event was graced by a visually
appealing Fashion Show displaying the latest and hottest collection for Liiber London and Mareta West. At the end of the event many of Cameroon’s top bloggers
and guests who attended the event mingled with the BBCL Organizers and posed
for pictures taken by a stream of photographers waiting to catch a glimpse of
these Beautiful Camer ladies who were Bold enough to create such an event.
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| Liiber London Neckpiece |
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| It's Mareta West on the Runway |
The BBCL team would
like to thank all the Sponsors (Bailey’s and Madiba Consultants), all Other
Sponsors, Media Partners and all the Vendors who participated in the running of
the 1st BBCL event. A big
thank you goes to all the bloggers who buzzed about the it before and after the
event. The official hashtag for this event was #BBCL2014Event.
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| Organizer & panelist, Mbole Ekaney of The HotJem |
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| Ladies posting |
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| Writerphillic blogger, Nkiacha Atemnkeng |
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| Organizers:(L) Chantal Edie (Chantal Edie Photography) & Adeline Sede Kamga (FabAfrique) |
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| Paying Attention..lol |
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| Trendy By Tia at the mini exhibition |
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| Event Backdrop: Organizers, Sponsors, Vendors |
For more information on
the BBCL event please send all emails to bbclgroup@yahoo.com.
It was a great opportunity to work with and meet other bloggers, young professionals & entrepreneurs in fashion designer, IT, Art, telecommunications, publishing, banking and finance etc.
Already looking forward to organizing a bigger, better & re-branded event this December.
Y.M.
IRepCamer
SWITCH!
