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Apr 28, 2021

How social media can support your mental health

By Mulesa

The negative effects of social media on our mental health are well documented. Facebook envy makes us long for the seemingly blissful existence of our Facebook friends. We stay glued to our phones because the FOMO has us believing that we need to be plugged in consistently so that we don’t miss being a part of that viral moment. We spend all of our time curating the perfect online journal of our best moments that we actually forget to live those moments. In short, social media can leave us feeling miserable, anxious, dissatisfied, lacking in confidence and disconnected from ourselves.

That said, working in digital marketing has given me insights into the utility of social media – it can be a great source of information, a vehicle to achieve social good, a purveyor of (mostly) trustworthy news in quick time, a great awareness-raising tool, and a platform for small businesses to showcase their products. If approached carefully and correctly, social media can also benefit your mental health rather than harm it.

Mar 24, 2021

How do you share passwords safely?

By Melissa

Photo by Liam Tucker

Online security is something everyone has to pay attention to – more and more, these days. We take it very seriously at Pomegranite, from big things like ensuring all our websites have strong security, to little questions like: how do you safely share website passwords with clients?READ MORE

Mar 8, 2021

Hubspot: The marketing empire

By Jesse

Photo by Glassdoor

Let’s talk about HubSpot’s business model, what they’ve done right and what kinds of things any digital marketer can take away from it.

Mar 4, 2021

How to prioritise tasks

By Liz

Photo by Joel Henry

Tasks at work are flying in like 747s at a busy airport and you’ve got to shuffle things to ensure your deliverables are ready for takeoff – but in what order? The skill of prioritising tasks is like the air traffic controller in your brain that keeps your work on schedule. It requires seeing the bigger picture as well as the finer details to avoid missing opportunities while sticking to deadlines.READ MORE

Mar 1, 2021

How do you know when to make big decisions?

By Sarah

Photo by Maximilian Weisbecker

Our office lease expired last month. Since our lovely office mates, Crush, had moved out quite a few months ago as a result of the pandemic, it didn’t make much sense for us to hang onto such a big space just for us.

The question was – do we look for another smaller office? Or do we sit tight for a while, seeing as we’re mostly all working from home anyway? Would it be ok not to have a “home” for a while?

Running a business comes with the inevitable big decision making every now and then: hiring new people, taking on extra risk, making a big investment.

How do you know when it’s the right time to “push the boat out”, as my mom would say? And how do you know whether the decision you’ve made is the right one for your business?READ MORE

Feb 16, 2021

Congrats on three years with Pomegranite, Tom!

Three years ago, Tom joined our team as a social media manager (has it been that long already?!). This charming old soul’s hard work and dedication to the team has seen him grow into his current project manager role, and it’s been an absolute pleasure to have him as part of the Pomegranite family.

Jan 22, 2021

Why the two-factor authentication?

By Carla and Tom

Photo from Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

Have you ever wondered why online banking has so many OTPs? It’s because cyber security is a big deal, that’s why you hear it on the news more and more. And while you might think that hackers aren’t as interested in your shopping habits as state secrets, you’d be wrong. Whether you are a global superpower or an undercover cat blogger, your data is valuable. Let me explain why “password123” won’t cut the mustard and how two-factor authentication is a must have.

Dec 17, 2020

2020: the year of surrender

By Sarah

The question I’ve been chatting to Liz about this morning is:

What do you say in a “Happy holidays!” blog after a year like 2020 without sounding like a trying-too-hard-bit-off-the-mark Hallmark card? All that makes sense to us is to be honest and real.

For me, this year has been about surrender. Never before has a lesson been delivered with such quiet (and sometimes loud) insistence.READ MORE

Dec 9, 2020

What is 5G? And should we fear it?

By Tom

Photo from AR on Unsplash

There’s a lot of bad press when it comes to 5G, whether it be conspiracy theories linking it to Covid-19 or headlines slamming the country’s newest ISP, Rain – the biggest advocate of the new technology. Much like cryptocurrency or blockchain, it’s become a buzz term that’s thrown around a lot, but not always understood. I decided to take a look into what it actually is, because I too had jumped on the bandwagon without even knowing its tune.

Dec 7, 2020

The manufactured gamer

By Jesse

Photo from Lucie Liz on Pexels

The nature of video games is change – the objective of every game is to get bigger and better and that’s exactly what’s happened with the video game industry over the years.

We’re at the stage where AAA games are going for R800 – R1200 per copy, e-sports events are so popular they’re being hosted on live TV, and the industry has become a massive multi-billion dollar cash cow in which the most surprising companies are successfully investing their marketing budget.

But why has marketing to gamers become so popular recently? And why does so much of it look so similar?

Dec 3, 2020

Speaking to the 5 Love Languages at work

By Melissa

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

We all give and receive love differently and understanding the love languages of those around us goes a long way in nurturing relationships. Insight into how your partner, friend or co-worker prefer to receive appreciation or affection enables you to affirm them in a language they understand.

Interested in seeing if one could apply the 5 Love Languages at work, we at Pomegranite took the 5 Love Languages quiz again to brush up on our knowledge. READ MORE

Nov 26, 2020

Social media & human rights advocacy

By Mulesa

Photo by Mike Von on Unsplash

Social media can be a powerful advocacy tool. From mobilising action around a certain cause to raising awareness about violations of our rights, from building relationships with other organisations to amplifying fundraising efforts, there are many ways that organisations whose work focuses on the advancement of human rights can use and have used social media to further their work. They have adopted similar approaches when it comes to creating their social media strategies and, over the last few years, five major marketing trends have emerged.READ MORE

Nov 25, 2020

Self-care: more than just a buzzword or marketing ploy?

By Mulesa

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

What does self-care mean to you? Nowadays it feels like the term is thrown around with little thought as to what it means exactly. Self-care has become synonymous with bubble baths, marathon shopping sprees and stuffing your face with decadent baked goodies while binging on your favourite Netflix shows, but it can be so much more meaningful than that. In her enlightening and moving TedxCrenshaw Talk on the subject matter, public health specialist, Portia Jackson-Preston, discusses the missing ingredient from self-care as we understand it today. This was the inspiration behind my skill share on self-care.READ MORE

Oct 16, 2020

Meet Jesse

In a year like this one, with all its challenges, we feel very lucky to have been able to grow our team. Even luckier to have found someone as lovely as Jesse, who is our newest project manager.

Knowledge sponge and free-thinker. Cat mom of three. UCT Fine Arts graduate, painter, and self-taught techie. Practiced multi-tasker and project juggler. Competitive perfectionist who loves a good challenge. Professional book re-reader. Loves starting new series and never finishing them, gaming, gyming, and solving puzzles.

We knew we liked her right from the moment she completed the test in the application process by adding her own spreadsheet; spreadsheets, incidentally, are Liz’s love language.READ MORE

Oct 12, 2020

The audacity of a sabbatical

By Sarah

A little while ago I spent a few weeks on a friend’s beautiful farm in the Eastern Cape. Every day I would wake up at sunrise and go for a solo walk to a particular rock where I would sit sipping my coffee, listening to the cows in the distance, the birds, the river, the complete not-city-ness of it all.

Sometimes, in the evenings, I would chat to my friend’s husband and ask him questions about farming, which is potentially the most polar-opposite job to my own.

How do you burn a firebreak, like really? (Spoiler: completely still days aren’t actually ideal for this activity. How interesting?)READ MORE

Sep 11, 2020

Blurred lines: work-life balance and working remotely

By Melissa

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Work-life balance is often elusive and challenging to maintain. When work moves from an office to your home, the lines you had previously drawn between your personal and professional life can easily blur.

While working from home comes with the highly sought-after benefits of flexibility, more quality time with loved ones, increased productivity and no commuting, it can become difficult to switch off and unplug at the end of the work day. As Covid-19 continues to flood our daily lives, we are all searching for calm and stability as we navigate what has become our new normal. A good work-life balance, now more than ever before, is essential for personal happiness, professional growth and your motivation to do great work.

Jul 27, 2020

Four ways to use TikTok for marketing

By Mulesa

Photo by Kon Karampelas

For the longest time I resisted jumping on the TikTok bandwagon. I really enjoyed the clips of viral challenges and soundbites of inspirational words that popped up on my Instagram and Facebook but dismissed it as a platform for Gen Z kids on which I had no place. However, I remained deeply fascinated by China’s social media sensation and after using it myself, I’ve developed an appreciation for its raw and real approach to social media.

I was also inspired by my work in social media marketing to explore how TikTok could be used for business. Here’s a brief overview of four ways that brands, big and small, can make the most out of the platform to market themselves.

Jul 22, 2020

Seven things we’ve learned in seven years

By Sarah and Liz

At the beginning of July Pomegranite turned 7. We didn’t have our usual party (the photo above was taken at last year’s celebration), complete with the impossibly ridiculous quiz, because of the global pandemic (bit of a downer, that), but it didn’t stop us from lifting our heads and acknowledging how far we’ve hiked, and how much we’ve learned, from the day we first sat on the lounge floor to write our business plan. READ MORE

Jun 10, 2020

Beyond #BlackOutTuesday: navigating social media during social unrest

By Mulesa

Photo by Clay Banks

In the past two weeks, our social media news feeds have been filled with news on George Floyd – an African-American man who tragically died at the hands of a white police officer while he was being arrested – and the subsequent revival of Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in the United States and beyond. In addition to the powerful images of his face and gatherings of protestors in Australia, South Korea and the UK posted over every social media platform, there have been impassioned calls to end violence against black people, systemic racism and police brutality across the world. Closer to home, names like Collins Khosa, Petrus Miggels and Robyn Montsumi dominate news headlines.

Offline activism also moved to the online space with users showing their support for those at the frontlines of protest action using hashtags like #ICantBreathe, #SayTheirNames and #BlackOutTuesday, which was born out of a music industry initiative in the US. Although initially for entertainers, big brands and ordinary people alike joined the initiative, the aim of which was to go silent on social media and use the time to reflect on current events. Users also posted a single black square as their profile picture on Facebook and Twitter or to their grid on Instagram as a symbol of solidarity with the BLM movement. Aside from some of the controversy around the symbolic sea of black squares on social media, the hashtag prompted a much-needed online exchange of information about BLM. It also raised some valuable questions about online activism, especially for digital marketers.READ MORE

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