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Social Media

Marketing A S t r at e g i c Approach Second Edition

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Social Media

Marketing A S t r at e g i c Approach Second Edition

Melissa S. Barker Donald I. Barker N i c o l a s F. B o r m a n n Mary Lou Roberts Debra Zahay

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Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach, Second Edition Melissa S. Barker, Donald I. Barker Nicolas F. Bormann, Mary Lou Roberts, Debra Zahay Vice President, General Manager, Social Science & Qualitative Business: Erin Joyner Product Director: Jason Fremder Senior Product Manager: Mike Roche Product Assistant: Allie Janneck Content Developer: Ted Knight Marketing Director: Kristen Hurd Marketing Manager: Jeffrey A. Tousignant Marketing Coordinator: Casey Binder Art and Cover Direction, Production Management, and Composition: Lumina Datamatics, Inc. Intellectual Property:

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Printed in the United States of America Print Number: 01 Print Year: 2016

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Listen

Brief Contents

Tune

Preface xi About the Authors xii Acknowledgments xiv Chapter 1 | The Role of Social Media Marketing 1 Chapter 2 | Goals and Strategies 22 Chapter 3 | Identifying Target Audiences 41 Chapter 4 | Rules of Engagement for SMM

60

Chapter 5 | Social Media Platforms and Social Networking Sites 77 Chapter 6 | Microblogging 99 Chapter 7 | Content Creation and Sharing: Blogging, Streaming Video, Podcasts, and Webinars 113 Chapter 8 | Video Marketing 141 Chapter 9 | Marketing on Photo Sharing Sites 157 Chapter 10 | Discussion, News, Social Bookmarking, and Q&A Sites 175 Chapter 11 | Content Marketing: Publishing Articles, White Papers, and E-Books 193 Chapter 12 | Mobile Marketing on Social Networks 206 Chapter 13 | Social Media Monitoring 227 Chapter 14 | Tools for Managing the Social Media Marketing Effort 249 Chapter 15 | Social Media Marketing Plan 269 Appendix | XYZ Coffee Company Social Media Marketing Plan 303 Index

319

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v

Tools

Goals

Contents

Strategies

Preface xi About the Authors xii Acknowledgments

xiv

Chapter 1 | The Role of Social Media Marketing 1 What Is SMM? 2 The Seven Myths of SMM 4 The History of SMM 11 Why SMM Is Different 14 Careers in SMM 15 What Are the Characteristics of a Successful Social Media Marketer? 18 Best Practices for SMM 19 Notes 19

Chapter 2 | Goals and Strategies 22 What Is a SMM Plan? 23 SMM Planning Cycle 23 Listen and Observe: Five Stages 25 Listen and Observe: Listening Centers 28 Setting Goals and Objectives 31 Determining Strategies 35 Linking Goals with a Call to Action 36 Self-Promotion vs. Building an Army of Advocates 37 Best Practices for Developing a Social Media Strategy 39 Notes 39

Chapter 3 | Identifying Target Audiences 41 The Importance of Targeting in SMM 41 The Targeting Process in SMM 42 Targeting Ads and Posts on Social Platforms 51 Best Practices for Targeting Branded Posts 56 Notes 57

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Chapter 4 | Rules of Engagement for SMM 60 Permission vs. Interruption Marketing: Developing the Social Contract Initial Entry Strategy: Passive vs. Active 64 Principles for Success 64 SMM Ethics 68 Making Ethical Decisions 70 Global Perspective 71 Best Practices: Following the Rules of Engagement for SMM 72 Notes 75

61

Chapter 5 | Social Media Platforms and Social Networking Sites

77

List of Social Media Platforms 77 A Brief History of Social Networks 79 Benefits of Marketing with Social Networks 82 Marketing with Social Networks 85 Why Use a White Label Social Network? 90 The Future of Social Networks 90 Notes 95

Chapter 6 | Microblogging 99 What Is Microblogging? 100 A Brief History of Microblogging 100 Different Uses for Microblogging 101 Building Your Brand Online 103 Building a Twitter Following 105 Best Practices for Crafting an Effective Twitter Channel 107 Marketing with Microblogging 109 Notes 111

Chapter 7 | Content Creation and Sharing: Blogging, Streaming Video, Podcasts, and Webinars 113 Creating a Content Strategy 113 Blog History 116 What Is a Blog? 117 Creating and Promoting a Blog 117 Everyone Is a Publisher 120 Marketing Benefits of Blogging 122 Linking a Blog to Marketing Objectives 123 Monitoring the Blogosphere 123 Video Streaming in the Social Media Mix 123

CONTENTS

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A Brief History of Podcasting 125 Creating and Sharing Podcasts 125 Marketing with Podcasting 127 Hosting Webinars 129 Marketing with Webinars and/or Podcasts 131 Best Practices for Blogging, Podcasting, Video Sharing, and Webinars 132 Notes 136

Chapter 8 | Video Marketing 141 Viral Videos—Numa Numa and the Old Spice Guy Consumer Use of Video 143 Benefits of Marketing with Online Videos 145 How to Create Appealing Video Content 150 Notes 154

142

Chapter 9 | Marketing on Photo Sharing Sites The Growing Importance of Visual Marketing 157 A Brief History of Photo Sharing 161 Benefits of Marketing with Online Photos and Other Images Marketing with Photo Sharing Sites 169 Best Practices in Marketing through Photo Sharing 170 Notes 171

157

165

Chapter 10 | Discussion, News, Social Bookmarking, and Q&A Sites

175

The Evolution of Online Discussions 176 Marketing with Social News and News Aggregation Sites 177 Marketing with Social Bookmarking and S-Ecommerce 182 Marketing with Q&A Sites 185 Future of Discussion Boards, Social News, Social Bookmarking, and Q&A Sites 186 Best Practices for Online Discussions on All Platforms 188 Notes 190

Chapter 11 | Content Marketing: Publishing Articles, White Papers, and E-Books 193 Publishing and Distributing Articles 194 Creating White Papers and E-Books 196 Marketing with Articles, E-Books, and White Papers 199 Best Practices in Crafting Articles, White Papers, and E-Books 201 Notes 204

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CONTENTS

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Chapter 12 | Mobile Marketing on Social Networks

206

Mobile in the Lives of Global Consumers 208 How Many People Use Mobile to Access the Internet and Social Platforms? 208 Which Networks Do They Access? 209 Which Devices and Which Services Are Winning and Losing in the Shift to Mobile?

What Part Do Apps Play in Mobile Use? 212 What Kinds of Activities Do Consumers Conduct on Mobile? 213 Are Consumers Making Purchases on Mobile? 215 What Will the Impact Be of Having a Buy Button on Social Networking Sites? 217 Mobile-First Strategy 218 Location-Based Marketing 220 Mobile Customer Experience 222 Best Practices for Social Mobile Marketing 223 Notes 223

Chapter 13 | Social Media Monitoring

210

227

The Importance of Social Media Monitoring 228 Listening and Tracking 228 Measuring 229 Measuring 232 Evaluation 238 Evaluating the Impact of Social Media Activities 239 Metrics and Analytics Best Practices 246 Notes 247

Chapter 14 | Tools for Managing the Social Media Marketing Effort What Are Social Media Marketing Tools? 250 Choosing the Right Tool for the Job 251 Single-Purpose Tools 253 Single Platform Tools 257 Multiple Platform Tools 258 Purchased Services 260 Consumer Tools for Productivity and Engagement Notes 267

Chapter 15 | Social Media Marketing Plan

249

264

269

Creating an Informative and Eye-Catching Title Page 270 Automatically Generating a Table of Contents 270 Writing a Compelling Executive Summary 271 Composing a Brief Overview 273 Observing Social Media Presence 274 Conducting a Competitive Analysis 275 Setting Goals 279 CONTENTS

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Determining Strategies 279 Identifying the Target Market 280 Selecting Platforms 281 Implementing 281 Monitoring 291 Tuning 294 Budgeting 294 Calculating Return on Investment 298 Getting C-Suite Buy-In 299 Notes 299

Appendix | XYZ Coffee Company Social Media Marketing Plan

303

Executive Summary 305 Brief Overview 306 Social Media Presence 306 Competitive Analysis 307 Goals 309 Strategies 310 Target Market 310 Platforms 311 Implementation 311 Monitoring 314 Tuning 317 Budget 317 Return on Investment 317 Notes 318

Index 319

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CONTENTS

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Preface

Strategies

S

ocial Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach is built upon an eight-step planning cycle that helps ensure the development of a winning SMM plan. This model incorporates the conceptual foundation and practical techniques necessary for creating a comprehensive and effective SMM plan. The model also provides a framework for developing a personal brand, a subject given chapter-by-chapter coverage in the second edition.

This planning cycle begins with observing an organization’s current goals, presence and competition on the social web, followed by the establishment of SMART social media objectives and effective strategies to achieve them. The next step is to define an organization’s target markets and campaign-specific audiences on the social web. This process makes it possible for a company to identify the social media platforms with the highest concentrations of its target audiences and determine how they are participating on those platforms, which enables the organization to select the optimal social media platforms for reaching its target audiences.

Interaction on the social web is guided by informal rules of engagement and general principles of appropriate behavior (social media ethics). Marketers must be aware of these precepts before attempting to participate in social media or risk alienating the very market segments they hope to connect with and influence.

With these guidelines in mind, as well as the company’s social media goals, strategies, target audiences, and prime social media platforms, marketers can craft actionable platform-specific marketing tactics. The execution of these tactics allows an organization to implement its social media strategies across multiple platforms and realize the company’s marketing goals. The bulk of this textbook is dedicated to learning how to create and deploy specific marketing tactics using online platforms and the mobile web.

Social media tools that make the process more efficient as well as more effective are given detailed coverage. In addition, extensive consideration is given to monitoring and measuring the progress made in reaching social media objectives and demonstrating return on investment. Feedback, both qualitative and quantitative, provides the means to continuously adjust and improve the elements of an SMM plan to maximize the chances of success.

The final chapter draws upon all the preceding material in the textbook to demonstrate and explain how to develop a formal SMM plan with multiple references and illustrations from a real world sample plan (presented in its entirety in the Appendix).

Hence, this textbook provides a rich and robust cumulative learning experience with deep contextual relevance that endows the reader with an enduring understanding of the process of effective SMM planning. This process provides the social media marketer with a strong foundation for dealing with the ever-changing audiences, platforms and technologies of the social web.

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About the Authors

Goals

Listen Tune

Melissa S. Barker Melissa S. Barker is a digital marketing consultant and public speaker, currently working with Jive Software, Puppet Labs, and Gates NextGen Open Source Courseware Grant. She has coauthored five textbooks, including the best-selling Internet Research Illustrated. In 2010, she created the first accredited social media marketing certificate in Washington State. She teaches search and social media marketing, as well as other related courses at Spokane Falls Community College.

Melissa holds a B.A. in public relations and advertising from Gonzaga University, and an M.B.A. from Willamette University (expected in 2016). She has held key roles in digital marketing management at Siber Systems, Own Point of Sale, Integra Telecom, Jive Software, and Oregon Public Broadcasting. Melissa has become a recognized authority on LinkedIn, and a sought-after speaker at conferences, such as InnoTech and ITEXPO. For more information, visit: www.linkedin.com/in/melissasbarker

Donald I. Barker Donald I. Barker has authored, coauthored, and contributed to forty cuttingedge and best-selling textbooks on subjects ranging from computer operating systems and expert systems to Internet research and social media marketing. He holds an M.B.A. from Eastern Washington University. As an assistant professor of information systems at Gonzaga University, he won the Best Theoretical Paper Award at the International Business Schools Computer Users Group’s Annual North American Conference. In addition, he received several Jepson Scholarship Awards for notable publications in the field of artificial intelligence. As a senior editor of PC AI Magazine, he wrote the popular Secret Agent Man column. For more information, visit: www.linkedin.com/in/donaldibarker.

Debra Zahay Debra Zahay is professor of marketing and chair of marketing, entrepreneurship and digital media management at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. She holds her PhD in marketing from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, an MBA from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, a JD from Loyola University, Chicago, Illinois, and an AB from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Zahay is also the president of Zahay, Inc., a digital marketing strategy and education consulting firm.

Dr. Zahay has been teaching internet marketing, search and social media marketing, data management, and related topics at the university level since 1999 and has taught full-time at Aurora University in Aurora, Illinois, Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.

Dr. Zahay researches how firms can use customer information to increase firm performance. Some journals in which she has published include Journal

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of Interactive Marketing (Best Paper 2014), Journal of Product Innovation Management, Decision Sciences, and Industrial Marketing Management. She coauthored the third edition of the Cengage textbook Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies with Mary Lou Roberts, solo-authored a book with Business Expert Press, Digital Marketing Management: A Handbook for the Current (or Future) CEO. Active in her profession, she is a long-standing member of both the American Marketing Association and the Academy of Marketing Science, where she has served as track chair. She has served as conference co-chair for the Direct/ Interactive Research Summit. She serves on the editorial board of the both the Journal of Marketing Analytics and Industrial Marketing Management and is editorin-chief of the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing.

Mary Lou Roberts Mary Lou Roberts is professor emeritus of management and marketing at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She holds a PhD in marketing from the University of Michigan. After retiring from full-time teaching, she continued to teach Internet marketing and social media marketing at the Harvard University Extension School for a number of years.

Other books include Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies (third edition with Debra Zahay, 2013), Direct Marketing Management (second edition with Paul D. Berger, 1999), and Marketing to the Changing Household (with Lawrence H. Wortzel, 1984). In addition, she has published over fifty papers and conference proceedings in the United States and internationally. Her research has received awards including a Robert B. Clarke Best Paper award and a Dean’s Award for Distinguished Research.

She has served as a convener, chair, and reviewer for many US and international journals and conferences as well as serving on the boards of directors of professional and nonprofit organizations, including the American Marketing Association and Mass Audubon. She has consulted and provided training sessions for corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations Dr. Roberts is active on social media. In addition to the Google+ and Facebook sites that support both students and instructors in Internet marketing and social media marketing, she has several Pinterest boards and personal accounts on other sites, including Instagram. She posts professional updates on LinkedIn and SlideShare and tweets on a regular basis.

Janna M. Parker Janna Parker is assistant professor of marketing at James Madison University where she teaches strategic Internet marketing. She holds a DBA in marketing from Louisiana Tech University. Her previous academic appointment was at Georgia College and State University where she taught integrated marketing communications, social media, and other related topics in undergraduate and graduate courses.

Dr. Parker’s research interests are retailing, advertising, and social media. She has published in Journal of Business Ethics and Journal of Consumer Marketing. She is active in many professional organizations and has served as a reviewer and track chair. She is the director of social media for the Academy of Marketing Science.

About the Authors

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xiii

Acknowledgments

Goals

Listen Tune

We are indebted to the instructors, students, and reviewers that made the first edition of Social Media Marketing: A Strategic Approach a success. In addition, we are grateful to our ever-supportive editor at Cengage Learning, Mike Roche. He brought us together to create the second edition, and has been a dependable source of information and encouragement. Ted Knight, of J. L. Hahn Consulting Group, managed the production process, with skill and good humor.

Professors Barker and Barker, Zahay, Roberts, and Parker have been teaching Social Media Marketing since its early days as a marketing and communications discipline.

Being in the forefront of a rapidly evolving discipline has its challenges, as well as its rewards. Our students have contributed important knowledge and insights about the ­ ractitioners working of social platforms, and the activities of social media users. Busy p have given generously of their time and expertise to assist us and our students in ­understanding the real-world practices that make successful social media marketing a reality. For all these sources of information and inspiration, we express our profound gratitude, and our best wishes for a productive social media journey together.

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Listen

Dedication

Tune

To our families for enduring the hassles of living with an author; to our students for their enthusiasm and insights; to the many practitioners who have been supportive. MSB/ DIB/NFB/MLR/DZ/JP

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CHAPTER

1

The Role of Social Media Marketing Social media marketing (SMM) has emerged as a vital business force offering vibrant career options. It offers important benefits to marketers but some aspects

are still not widely understood. SMM has experienced dramatic growth in recent years and is poised for substantial growth and change in years to come.

Social media is growing by leaps and bounds. It is estimated that by 2016 there will be around 2.13 billion social media users around the world. That is up from 1.4 billion in 2012 and it represents over 63% all Internet users.1 Marketers are working hard to reach this huge social media audience. This book is intended to help both students and businesses understand the social media landscape and the changes that are taking place and to learn and how to approach it strategically.

Many businesses struggle with social media because they lack a definite plan. They start with an end in mind instead of creating a strategy and objectives. A company might start a Twitter account or a Facebook page, but it is not likely to see results unless there is a clear understanding of its marketing objectives. Like any form of marketing, a strong strategic plan for social media is required for success. This book contains chapters on establishing strategic goals and objectives and monitoring plan achievement as well as a chapter on the SMM plan itself and a sample SMM plan.

The advent of social media has also posed a challenge to traditional marketing methodologies. Marketing budgets are increasingly focused on digital, and the jobs of marketing professionals have changed as a result.

Learning Objectives After completing this chapter, students will be able to: • Explain why social media is important to businesses around the world • Define SMM • Explain the seven myths of SMM • Relate a brief history of SMM • Explain characteristics of SMM and ways in which it differs from traditional offline marketing • Describe typical positions that are available in SMM (Continued)

1

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Advertising has increasingly moved to the Internet and to the mobile web, with even long-time print magazines such as The Atlantic shifting to a largely digital-based revenue strategy.2 For many firms, the focus is now online, which makes knowledge of SMM especially valuable for students and/or soon-to-be job-seekers.

This book is organized into two core sections: the first four chapters will lay the foundation for engaging in social media, including marketing strategy and objectives, targeting specific audiences, and the background rules of social media. The remainder of the book will encompass more detailed elements of SMM and how to adapt the strategy to specific platforms and international audiences. By creating a solid marketing plan and choosing the right tools, a business can expediently and successfully navigate to its marketing goals and objectives.

• Discuss the characteristics of a successful social media marketer • Identify best practices for SMM

What Is SMM? There are many definitions of SMM. This one from technology marketing site Mashable is straightforward and covers most of the important issues: Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website traffic or attention through social media sites.

Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks.

A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party source, as opposed to the brand or company itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media.3 SMM has a number of important aspects: 1. Creating buzz or newsworthy events, videos, tweets, or blog entries that attract attention and have the potential to become viral in nature. Buzz is what makes SMM work. It replicates a message through user to user contact, rather than the traditional method of purchasing an ad or promoting a press release. It emulates word of mouth (WOM) in the physical world and consequently can have a great deal of impact.

A classic example, one that alerted many marketers to the power of social media, is “United Breaks Guitars.” It all started when musician Dave Carroll’s guitar was damaged on a United Airlines flight (Figure 1.1). He spent the next 9 months trying to recover the $1,200 it cost to have the guitar repaired. As he tells the story, phoning and emailing only got him the run around. So he, with the help of musician friends, created a video at the cost of $150. On July 6, 2009, he posted it on YouTube. Within 24 hours the video had over 150,000 views; 24 days later it had over a million views and major news organizations as well as social media users had picked it up.

United contacted him agreeing to pay the repair costs and offered $1,200 in flight vouchers, which he declined. Two years later he estimated that his message had reached as many as 100 million people, courtesy of all the media mentions. All this created a storm of negative publicity for United.4 It is important to point out that no one can control, or even do a good job predicting, when a social media post will go viral. But marketers understand that they need to pay attention, perhaps even to improve their customer service.

2

Chapter 1 | The Role of Social Media Marketing

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AP Images / The Canadian Press / Andrew Vaughan

Figure 1.1

Dave Carroll with His Guitar

2. Building ways that enable fans of a brand or company to promote a message themselves in multiple online social media venues. Corporations or brands can create pages on major social platforms where they can offer followers information and promotions like coupons. They can reach huge audiences on these platforms as will be shown in the next section of this chapter. As we will discuss in Chapter 3, these huge audiences can be segmented using profile data and behavioral data from the platform to reach targeted audiences or to attract paid advertising.

3. It is based around online conversations. SMM is not controlled by the organization.

Instead it encourages user participation and dialog. A badly designed SMM campaign can potentially backfire on the organization that created it. To be successful SMM campaigns must fully engage and respect the users. Each type of platform, as discussed in Chapter 5, has its own way of engaging followers. How to conduct SMM in ways that bring positive response instead of public backlash is the subject of Chapter 4.

4. Social media is part of a larger media ecosystem of owned, paid, and earned media, which represents a way for marketers to leverage their own brand efforts.

These media are defined in Figure 1.2.

As you can see, paid media describes the traditional print and broadcast media, which are now joined by paid advertising on social media platforms and blogs. Paid advertising on social platforms is not a major focus of this book, although it will be discussed briefly in Chapter 4.

The Internet gives brands the opportunity to own their own media outlets ranging from their websites to their Facebook and LinkedIn pages. It has made each brand its own publisher, responsible for content of many kinds and for its dissemination. Much of the focus of this book is on creating content and marketing campaigns on different types of social platforms. Only the marketer’s owned platforms are within her direct control.

The most valuable media of all in this ecosystem is earned media. When people begin talking about a brand and its content, they spread the word with no additional effort on the part of the marketer. Even more important, this digital WOM confers much credibility on the brand, especially if recognized experts or influentials are talking on Twitter, Facebook, their blogs, and other channels. Like traditional public

Chapter 1 | The Role of Social Media Marketing

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3

OWNED MEDIA

EARNED MEDIA

Traditional advertising - print, television, radio, display, direct mail, paid search, retail/channel

Corporate web site, campaign microsite, blog, brand community, Facebook fan page, mobile, etc.

Word of mouth, Facebook comments, Twitter (@mentions, @replies), Vine, Blogs, forums, review sites

General Consumers

Customers

Super Fans

Figure 1.2

Source: http://blog.hootsuite.com/converged-media-brito-part-1/

PAID MEDIA

Paid, Owned, and Earned Media

relations, the brand cannot control the nature of this conversation but positive WOM in earned media can give the brand a significant boost.5 The combined impact of these aspects of SMM makes it quite different from traditional marketing in the offline media. As a result a number of myths have grown up around SMM, which help to explain both misconceptions and challenges of the discipline.

The Seven Myths of SMM SMM is one of the best ways that businesses can drive sales, build relationships, and satisfy their customers. Although social media has increased in popularity over the years as a marketing tool, there remain some common misconceptions about SMM. The following are seven of the most common myths that business professionals have regarding SMM.

Social Media Myth #1: Social Media Is Just a Fad Wrong Social media continues to grow by virtually any measure you use. Figure 1.3 shows the number of active accounts for the world’s 10 largest social media networks as of August 2015. The chart shows Facebook in the lead with almost a billion and a half active users. It also shows huge user bases for a number of messaging apps that are not widely used in the United States like the Chinese platform Tencent QQ. Twitter, Skype, and Google+ all made the top 10. Most surprising is Instagram in tenth place. Over 300 million active users is not bad for a platform founded in 2009!6 Businesses want to invest their time and energy in marketing tools that will be useful in the long term, versus wasting limited resources on a flash-in-the-pan technology or a fad. Some business professionals question whether social media will remain a powerful marketing and communications tool or if it will eventually fall by the wayside. To resolve 4

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1490

QQ

832

WhatsApp

800

Facebook Messenger

700

QZone

668 549

WeChat Twitter

316

Skype

300

Google+

300

Instagram

300 0%

200%

400%

600%

800% 1000% 1200% 1400% 1600%

Source: http://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-bynumber-of-users/

Facebook

Figure 1.3 Number of Active Users of Global Social Media Platforms as of August 2015

this issue, it is helpful to look at the foundations of social media, which are built on age-old concepts of community, socialization, and WOM marketing.

The “social” component of social media has been part of human interactions since the dawn of time. People are inherently social creatures to some extent. What has changed is the media by which people are able to express social impulses. As technology has advanced, so have the media available for social behavior. Initially, social interactions were limited to in-person meetings, then mail and letters, then telephones, then email, and now social media, or web-based social interactions.

The underlying premise of social media—that people are social and want to connect with other people—has been stable over time. The difference is that people are now able to connect with each other in a more efficient and scalable way. Facebook allows users to see what friends from high school are up to without ever speaking to them. Photos of friends and family from across the world can be viewed on photo sharing sites. In these and many other ways, social media allows people to keep up to speed with many connections in quick and efficient ways.

Like the Internet, social media is a not a flash in the pan because of the human desire to socialize and because the media of the Internet continue to evolve at a rapid rate, providing new and attractive means for people to interact. Although social media will only expand in the foreseeable future, specific social media platforms (technologies or platforms such as Facebook and Twitter) change considerably over time and other platforms rise and fall in popularity. The social media marketer must be alert to ongoing changes in the social media environment.

In the face of all this change, marketers will focus on the platforms most used by their target audiences. Figure 1.4 shows an interesting contrast between the platforms used by B2C marketers, with Facebook in the lead, and B2B marketers, where LinkedIn holds first place. This reflects the different audiences for B2C and B2B marketing.

Notice, however, that Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the top three platforms in both market spaces,7 just in a different order.

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5

2%

4%

1%

3% 4%

4% 4% 19%

9%

41% 65%

10% 30%

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Google+ Pinterest

Figure 1.4

YouTube Instagram Social review sites Forums

LinkedIn Facebook Twitter YouTube

Google+ Pinterest Forums

report-2015/

1%

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-industry-

1%

3%

Social Media Platforms Used by B2C and B2B Marketers

Social Media Myth #2: Social Media Is Just for the Young Wrong Many social media skeptics still think that social media is a tool primarily for the young: kids, teenagers, and college students. The reality is that older users are among the fastest growing demographics on most social media sites. Pew reports that in 2012 it found for the first time that over half of all adults age 65 and older were Internet users and that 46% of them used Facebook. Older adults are more likely to own a tablet or an e-book reader or both while only 13% owned a smartphone in 2014.

90

18-29 80%

78 65

30-49 60% 50-64

46 40%

65+

20%

0%

2006

Figure 1.5

6

2007

2008

2009

18-29 Age

50-64 Age

30-49 Age

65+ Age

2010

2011

2012

2013

Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/04/03/usage-and-adoption/

100%

Social Media Use by Age Group

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The age disparity in social media use continues to exist as shown in Figure 1.5.

Young adults are still the most likely to be social media users, but use among older adults, especially those in the 50–64 age group, has grown rapidly in recent years.8 The growth in social media usage rates among older adults carries over into the mobile sphere according to comScore. The young are still the heaviest users of mobile social media as well as the fastest growing group of users. However, among tablet mobile social media users, adults aged 55 and over represent the fastest growing group.9 Social networks are increasingly being adopted by older populations and are becoming incredibly diverse, with users spanning all age and income brackets. This diversity means that most businesses, if they are willing to look, can find their target consumers on social media sites. It also means that they should not simply try to appeal to a large, heterogeneous audience. They need to hone targeting skills for their own messaging and for paid advertising.

11%

1 to 2 Years

10%

26%

33%

2 to 3 years

15%

36%

3 to 4 years

16%

40%

4 to 5 years

23%

More than 5 years

28% 0%

Strongly Agree

37%

Agree

43%

51%

56%

42%

42%

65%

70%

10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

industry-report-2015/

Less than 12 months

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-

Social Media Myth #3: There Is No Return on SMM Wrong But that’s not to say that measuring the return on SMM is easy. It requires careful planning, careful execution, consistent monitoring, and the discipline to analyze and gain business insights from monitoring data. This textbook has a chapter dedicated to planning and one to social media monitoring that shows how the two marketing elements work together to make it possible to measure social media return on investment (ROI).

Although ROI is a specific monetary value determined by an established method, social media return is measured in a variety of different ways and is not always as clearcut as financial ROI. Figure 1.6 indicates that 70% of marketers surveyed in 2014 agreed or strongly agreed that SMM helps them improve sales. Those who have been using SMM the longest are most likely to support the statement with agreement becoming stronger the longer they have been social media marketers.10 Sales are the ultimate measure of marketing achievement, so this data makes a powerful case for SMM. That being said, there are many ways of measuring success that stop short of return on monetary investment.

Figure 1.6 Marketers Who Agree or Strongly Agree that SMM Helped Them Improve Sales

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7

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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI

Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller, without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who, as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.

FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER” (Sarcopsylla penetrans)

The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley, some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing, but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature, from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,

or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.

Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?

The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both “off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the craving for tobacco in the tropics.

Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to

an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and lemon-juice.

Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment, that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.

Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.

My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari; consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had

bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding, consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us, seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten years to come.

Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch: Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9 × 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.

How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his mutilated finger-tips.

Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.

The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface, however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day such a fire is a grand sight.

Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.

Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush, and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the

western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.

It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki suits had not escaped scatheless.

NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR MAHUTA

I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process

may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe— not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more, between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them— cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes, perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.

This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the secondary bush.

After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact, receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains, where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were accustomed to rule.

But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and

lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible, impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and come back to his starting point.

The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.

According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast, to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however, correct.

The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau, instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks and springs of the low country.

“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.

He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a stillborn child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which

was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In course of time, the couple had many more children, and called themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams, for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest wateringplace; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”

The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?

Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short, woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood, ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia, Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably) would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded

by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.

The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.

Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.

This knowledge is crystallized in the ancestral warning against settling in the valleys and near the great waters, the dwelling-places of disease and death. At the same time, for security against the hostile Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted that every settlement must be not less than a certain distance from the southern edge of the plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the present day. It is not such a bad one, and certainly they are both safer and more comfortable than the Makua, the recent intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain, especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the

most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.

The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.

It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding out how the back door is fastened.

MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]

MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY

With no small pride first one householder and then a second showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of “Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have

two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise, come in for a blowing-up.

The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala, shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.

Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde bush:—

“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”

With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination, might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech, and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking differences in outward appearance.

Even did such exist, I should have no time to concern myself with them, for day after day, I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in any case to grasp and record—an extraordinary number of ethnographic phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at least, are barred by external circumstances.

Chief among these is the subject of ironworking. We are apt to think of Africa as a country where iron ore is everywhere, so to speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and where it would be quite surprising if the inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the material ready to their hand. In fact, the knowledge of this art ranges all over the continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so favourable. According to the statements of the Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other form of iron ore is known to them. They have not therefore advanced to the art of smelting the metal, but have hitherto bought all their THE ANCESTRESS OF iron implements from neighbouring tribes.

THE MAKONDE Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much better off. Only one man now living is said to understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that, frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado” (“Not yet”).

BRAZIER

Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation