Sandy Loppnow & Karen Herman – the faces behind ShowMe East London

Sandy & Karen – What?  Photoshop you say… Never!  We absolutely ARE wrinkle free!  😉

ShowMe East London has become the largest online media marketing platform in East London in the past 4+ years and chances are you have come across our community website on the Google search engines, our newsletter in your email inbox, our Facebook posts on your news feed… or you may have heard us daily on-air on LinkFM.

No matter what your chosen online media is, if you live in East London, chances are you have come into contact with ShowMe East London.

So who are we and how did we get here?

A born and bred East Londoner, I left in High School when my family transferred inland. I completed my schooling and studies and ended up in Senior Management in the banking sector in Johannesburg.

My family returned to East London around 25 years ago, but I chose to stay in Johannesburg to further my career.  Regular visits to my family kept me in touch with my roots and it was always on the cards that I would one day leave the big smoke and move back to East London to be closer to them.

That one day turned out to be 01 December 2011, when I packed my suitcases and hit the road back to East London.  It was a risky decision to chuck in 28 years of loyal service to a great company, not to mention a great salary, and to bet everything on myself and my dreams, but I was itching to see the back of the corporate sector and eager to start my own business.

I investigated many business opportunities, and even though I was told by numerous people that this would not work, I kept returning to the possibility of ShowMe East London.  Being a ‘writer’ by nature and a business person at heart, I knew that 90% of success is hard work and passion… and ShowMe East London was the one that got my creative juices flowing.  I bought the franchise (Buffalo City & Chintsa area) and started working on writing the huge amount of local content required before we could officially launch.

ShowMe East London launch day – 17th March 2012.

The ShowMe East London website launched on 17 March 2012 and in just 4 short years has grown from just 874 page views in that first month, to the 80,000 – 110,000 monthly page views we achieve today.

One of my luckiest breaks in starting up ShowMe East London was to interview and recruit Karen Herman as the Social Content Editor.  Having recruited hundreds of staff over the years I have a good eye for ‘bull’, and generally take my time when looking for the most suitable staff.   Filling this position (I originally thought) was going to be my most difficult task, however when it came to Karen (the very first person I interviewed for the position), I went against the grain and ended up offering her the job immediately.

What is work without a whole lot of fun?

A world traveller and hippie at heart, Karen had settled in East London with her gorgeous son Daniel, and was the perfect person to help with the growth of the content on the website.  It did not take long for us to become the Sandy & Karen duo – Karen focusing on the content on www.ShowMeEastLondon.co.za (events, articles, newsletters and galleries), while I focused on the business side of things selling websites, advertising listings, advertising banners and social media management services to local businesses here in East London (www.ShowMeOnlineMedia.co.za)

While my background and experience is pretty normal, Karen’s is the exact opposite and not so easy to put into a neat little box.  A Brit with strong Irish connections, Karen started working in the Publishing industry in London, handling media relations.  This led to a job with Connie Filippello Publicity in London, where she worked as the PR Officer for George Michael, Bill Wyman and Gianni Versace.

In 1998, Karen decided that she wanted to travel, and spent quite a few years working in the hospitality industry and as an English Language teacher in the USA, Ireland and Mexico before returning to the UK.  Karen then moved to South Africa where she finally laid down roots, right here in East London. Her extensive travelling and broad experience across a wide range of sectors created the context for her position as Social Content Editor, and the fact that we connected when we did was serendipitous.

Her experience has been one of the key reasons why the ShowMe East London Events & Entertainment Page has become the go-to in East London for the most up-to-date Events & Entertainment available in the city.  Her natural ease when dealing with the entertainment industry comes across in her personal articles and the many beautiful photographs that have graced our Lifestyle and Gallery pages over the past 4 years.  With writing and photography as a passion, who else could be better for the job at hand?

My role is more business related and behind the scenes, visiting local businesses to which we sell our wonderful range of websites, affordable business listings, banner advertising and social media marketing packages.  I help write and collate the content for the clients websites, assist with the updating and changes that are required, train clients capable of amending their own websites and listings, and generally am the liaison between our dedicated graphic design team and the client.

Over the last few years, many people have told me they love ShowMe East London, but cannot understand why we would go to so much effort to provide FREE local content?  What is the benefit they ask?

Well it is pretty simple really.  The ShowMe East London Community Website has extremely strong search engine optimisation (SEO), meaning almost every category on ShowMe East London can be found easily on the search engines such as google.  Add to that the great, local content inserted by Karen, and we have a winning formula that pushes us high up on the search engines, making it easier for our clients websites residing on that particular category page, to be found.

The www.ShowMeEastLondon.co.za website is in fact just a platform allowing us to market our clients business to the local community.  As a result of the regular, local and current content,  the Community Website, Facebook page and our weekly Newsletters, we have achieved such a strong following that, not surprisingly, many people are not aware that our actual business is web design & online marketing, not online publications.

My passion for East London also resulted in me becoming a member of the Border Kei Chamber of Business where for the last 4 years I have sat on the Tourism Committee, working with a dedicated group of local business people who donate their time to working hard to showcase East London in a positive light and attract tourism and tourism revenues to our city.  In all aspects, ShowMe East London strives to showcase the positives in our city, not the negatives, and we strive daily to encourage East Londoners and East London business to this end.

And when I can, I still write articles and content … because I love East London and am passionate about writing!

Every day what Karen and I do is a joy and I absolutely love what I do.  The last four and a half years have been the best of my life as I have returned to my home town, I am close to my family, I have started a business that I enjoy each and everyday… and I work with someone I can truly call a friend.  Surely life cannot get much better than that?

By Sandy Loppnow