The Zimbabwean is launching Mimiboards for four of our diaspora communities in South Africa: the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Gauteng regions. Each community gets their own board to keep track of news updates, responses to newspaper stories, opinions, events – anything involving Zimbabweans. But how should you use them?
Well, there is no “right” way to use a Mimiboard. Think of them as virtual noticeboards; public boards for messages you want the rest of your community to see. You can post to them online via www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/community-notices, our Facebook page, or Twitter, as well as via SMS.
Say you’re hosting an event somewhere in the Western Cape, and you want other Zimbabweans to know about it. You could send a text to 34247, which is the number for the Western Cape – the other numbers are at the end of the article.
Because you want to post the message to the Western Cape board you’d start the text with ‘ZIMWC’, and then type in the rest of your message. It might look like this: ‘ZIMWC Having a bbq for Zims Sunday 1pm at 1 Smith Street, Cape Town. Let me know if you can make it.’
If you hate text typing and want to post the same message online, you can easily do that. Just go to www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/community-notices and start typing in your message straight away; the end result is the same.
Other Mimiboard users would then be able to see your message and reply to it, letting you know how many to expect. Everything happens in real time. Mimiboards are set up to help people in communities with the news that is most important to them, anything from job postings, to events, to news gossip.
Our Mimiboards have also been set up to work with our twitter handle: @thezimbabwean. Say you have a piece of breaking news from Zimbabwe that you want to post on Twitter but you also want a response from Zimbabweans in your local community as well. Then when you send the tweet, add @thezimbabwean, and it will appear in our Mimiboards. For example, if I have heard the latest soccer score, I might tweet: “great news, Highlanders 1 – 0 Caps Utd, @thezimbabwean.” Then I know that the people who care about the score most, other Zimbabweans, will be able to see it.
Like that story you just read in The Zimbabwean? Hosting an event and want other Zimbabweans to know about it? Looking for updates on the latest news? Want to find out the latest score? Want to debate last week’s match with fellow supporters? Have a great tip-off that you want our journalists to investigate? Any story ideas you think The Zimbabwean should cover? Think The Zimbabwean needs to do things a little differently? Want to make your opinion known on COPAC? Post a comment on our Mimiboards and start the discussion. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to use a Mimiboard – they work for you.
To stick up a message via SMS, use one of four keywords, depending on your area.
If you want to post to the Western Cape board, text ‘ZIMWC + message’ to 34247.
If you want to post to the KwaZulu-Natal board, text ‘ZIMKZN + message’ to 34247.
If you want to post to the Limpopo board, text ‘ZIMLP + message’ to 34247.
If you want to post to the Gauteng board, text ‘ZIMGP + message’ to 34247.
Post published in: Business