Meet former Mail and Guardian Social Media Editor, SABC Digital News Producer Sthembiso Sithole. He is now a Senior Social Media Strategist for Motswako Media Group.

Sthembiso Sithole

Born in the dusty street of Senaoane in Soweto, He is the last born of Mr and Mrs Sithole. He has two older siblings namely his older brother Siphiwe and his second born sister Brenda. He was raised in a loving, warm home. He grew up like any other child as his parents both were working. His mother worked at a dry clean company after losing that job she was a maid and use to do catering with friends. His father was a driver for various companies, he used to travel across the country. Both his father and mother are retired now.

He started his schooling career at Emaweni Primary School, which was 5-10minutes walk from his home. He then proceeded to Bafikile Higher Primary School, and he did his high school at Phafokang Secondary School in Rockville (Soweto).

During his first year at Phafokang High School when only he was in Grade8, he came up with a school newspaper idea. He designed the newspaper also came up with stories that will go into the newspaper but unfortunately it didn’t succeed.

Sithole said “I was inspired by my paternal grandmother to study journalism, she had every newspaper in different languages, my cousins and I had to read one or two stories every day when we came back from school.”

After high school he registered for his Journalism Diploma course with Tshwane University of Technology in 2011. During his first year of study around March at TUT he scored himself a radio show at TUT FM, he was a current affairs producer and presenter. He wrote for a blog Journtau which was run by his lecturer Siphumelele Zondi. He also wrote for TUT Life Newspaper on his second year. He also wrote for The Star Newspaper on a part time basis when the university was in recess on his second year.

On his third year, SABC Digital News was looking for interns. He applied and was called for an interview which only took 10minutes. “When I got there, the panel said to me they have searched me on Google and they are impressed,” said Sithole.

After his internship ended he got a contract to be a Digital News Producer for the SABC. He had to integrate both television and radio news to online content and that when his passion for social media started. He worked at the SABC for two years.

The Mail and Guardian is the first newspaper to go digital in the country. He received a tweet from the newspaper management asking for his email address. He tweeted his email address. As the saying goes, “the rest is history”.

He joined The Mail and Guardian during the course of 2014 as a Social Media Editor. His job was to integrate the newspaper content to online content to make sure that the people go out and buy the newspaper the next day. “The Mail and Guardian had 300k followers on twitter when I joined them and when I left it had more than 500k followers and now it currently on 606k followers,” said Sithole.

When he left The Mail and Guardian he joined a company called Motswako Media Group, it is an audience delivery company. His role is to come up with different social media strategies for their clients.

He also has a public relations company which is known as FourPR. It is co-owned by four people in the media industry, they promote celebrities, TV shows and so forth.

Sithole recently had a guest talk with TUT Journalism students on how politicians used social media to campaign during the build up to the elections. And how to brand one’s self if you want to stay relevant in the media industry particularly as a journalist.

Titus Tshungu a second year journalism student said “The presentation was very nice, I learned a lot. He inspires us a lot and now I know a lot on how to be an active journalist online.”

His former classmates at TUT Zoey Mathebula said “He is a humble person and he was very ambitious from the get go and was always breaking barriers.”

Sithole recently did his Honours Degree at Wits University and he is awaiting his result. He did a research on how The Mail and Guardian utilises it social media platform and he plans to do his Master’s Degree and he is hoping to be a Social Media Lecturer one day.