Earlier this week Viber announced the first Public Chats launched in South Africa and the African continent; Brands, celebrities and public figures from Africa are invited to join Viber’s social channel, Public Chats, to experience live conversations.
Selected partners in Africa, at Pan-African level and in key markets such as South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Ivory Coast and Egypt, have joined Public Chats for this regional launch in a bid to be the first players to offer local conversations on Viber. African users can now start to follow them from the Viber Public Chats explore page.
Partners in South Africa includes owner of Splakavellis Management, the reputable Celebrity talent, brand and media management specialist Sheree O’Brien; who in the past 15yrs has developed and worked with a number of legendary music artists; toured with international house music DJ’s, was a brand ambassador to an international lifestyle clothing brand; is the PR Manager for some of the country’s largest annual music festivals; currently works on a number of high-profile Television Shows; does motivational speaking; performance coaching; project manages events and acts as a consultant to indie labels and artists on their own brand development.
Sheree’s Public Chat will cover all things Entertainment and Lifestyle related. Expect music news and discussions, celebrity interviews, behind the scenes pics and footage, event coverage, sports and fashion news and of course, true to O’Brien’s personality, random fun stuff. Her participants are respected and well known influencers in their respective industries.
“I’m no techie,” says Sheree, “and social media is already driving me so crazy that this took some convincing from my team. However, when they showed me the high profiled people worldwide that are using the app as partners; I knew I had to get on board! What’s cool about it is that you can have 200 participants that can engage with each other by sharing content like videos, pics, links, discussing topics, giving advice etc, with an unlimited number of followers BUT the chat is visible to the entire world… 664 Million users!”
Public Chats are live discussions that Viber users can follow, like and share with their community. Released in beta version in November 2014 with select global partners, this feature offers a new kind of social experience – tapping into live conversations from celebrities, personalities, brands and organizations. Mobile users can discover new communities; follow interactive chats in real-time and share original pieces of content with friends and contacts. Other partners include Vanessa Haywood, business woman, sports personality and actress; Cindy Pivacic, HIV awareness creator; Carishma Basday, actress, model and yogi; GreenPop, an environmental NGO on a mission to plant trees; Homeology, an interior design webzine; Gareth Pon, internationally recognised image creator; African Hip Hop music blog; celebrity adventure couple Gugu and Letshego Zulu; Soul Singer Ms Kelle; and Hint Business Community founded by Brandon Tancott and Willem Gous.
You can follow Sheree’s Viber Public Chat on http://www.viber.com/shereeobrien and if you feel you could add value with sharing cool content by being a participant you may request this via info@splakavellis.co.za.