African laughter launched PRPro which is a mobile application that runs on Android, Blackberry and iOS. PRPro is a reputation monitor on social media and it is a free for all application. This was achieved in partnership with TBWA East Africa which is an advertising agency. The application monitors the social media platforms for posts after a user specifies a key word or a set of key words. It currently works on Facebook and Twitter and accepts queries in English and partly for Swahili. The lead developer cited that the lack of dictionaries for the other languages makes it almost impossible to have support for them at this stage of the application development. The application also provides analytics of the levels of buzz and source breakdowns. This mobile application is an addition to African laughter’s webaraza business which provides automated press releases via its PRAlerts.
The app has been in development for the last eight months and it cost several millions to build as the Managing director of African Laughter, Jenny Luesby explained. PRPro is 85% accurate at getting connotations from posts and this is perfected to 100% by TBWA East Africa by hand picking the posts.The clients receive the 100% which they can use to make further deductions about their brand and what people post about on social media about them.
The application gives the corporates an opportunity to interact with the consumers for their services within the application and through the social media platforms. TBWA East Africa CEO, Mr. Tim Smyth cited that this mobile application was not a product but a service to their clients some of whom include; Kenya Airways and Standard bank.
