Twitter as a platform has come of age. The platform has become especially popular in Kenya and the African continent especially as channel of engagement for business leaders and politicians. As per a report released by The Burson-Marsteller’s Twiplomacy of 2015, 78% of 78% of African governments are using Twitter. At the time, Rwanda’s @PaulKagame was Africa’s most followed president ahead of Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta @UKenyatta with South Africa’s presidential administration @PresidencyZA coming third. The Burson-Marsteller’s Twiplomacy report for Twitter should be released in a few weeks and we shall have it covered for you.
A new report has been released by Portland, a London-based integrated communications agency showing that the platform has come of age in the African continent. According to the report the platform was initially used for social interaction and banter but the study shows growth in the platform with prevalence of serious debate about politics and government. According to the report, 1 in 10 of the most popular African hashtags in 2015 related to political issues with the most popular hashtag being #NigeriaDecides. Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia, Burundi and Egypt were the most active in these political conversations
The company analysed 1.6 billion geo-located tweets and the top 5,000 hashtags on the continent in creating the “How Africa Tweets” report. Egypt tweets the most out of any country in Africa, with 28% of all geolocated Twitter volume (amounting to 500 million tweets). Nigeria (360 million geolocated tweets), South Africa (325 million geolocated tweets), Kenya (125 million geolocated tweets) and Ghana (70 million geolocated tweets) round out the top five tweeting African countries.
