Why Twitter Should Pay More Attention To Africa


Twitter Inc has won the heart of many users in Africa. The micro-blogging service users in Africa are five times more likely to voice their political views than they are in the US and the UK, a new study reveals by Portland.

An analysis of 1.6 billion geo-located tweets and the top 5,000 hashtags on the Africa continent showed that one in 10 of the most popular topics were along political lines, compared with one in 50 for both Britain and America.

According to Portland, a London based communications firm and the authors of the research said, tweets about entertainment and celebrity culture were the most common conversations online in Africa last year, there has been a 10 percent increase in discussions around politics.

The top political hashtag in Africa, was focused on the highest profile election on the continent last year - #NigeriaDecide (Nigerian presidential elections)

Nigeria, South Africa, Ethiopia and Egypt had the most politically engaged Twitter users, but the report found current affairs issues crossed borders. Also, the political strife in Burundi were among the most popular topics discussed in Africa last year.
Mark Flanagan, Portland’s senior partner for content said, “Our previous studies showed that Twitter in Africa was much more of a space for social interaction or frivolous banter. This study, our third, demonstrates that the platform is coming of age with the prevalence of serious debate about politics and government.”
Furthermore, the study showed that tweeters in Africa didn’t like to talk about brands nearly as much as their American counterparts. Most, discussions in Africa are 25 times less likely to be around products, which could be explained by the lack of local brands using the service to promote their wares.

77 percent of Twitter users in Africa Tweet in English, that implies a vibrant marketplace for Twitter should pay more attention to; given the relative ease in which companies could reach users on a continent that speaks more than 3,000 languages.

Twitter could become a vital part of the business community, something it has struggled to do elsewhere, given Facebook and Google’s dominance of the small business market online.

Twitter is mostly dominated by users who are young, educated and based in cities. They also have higher disposable incomes than the average non-Twitter user. All of this makes these users a new political, financial and economic force on a continent known for its fragmented nature. 

Africa through Twitter is a unified marketplace.

Africa is important to Twitter, but it needs to do a lot more.

>>Source: [TNW, Portland]

13 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info you shared. :) I learned something new today for a change. Haha.

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  2. This is a great piece of news and good to see Africa has got so much internet users who are using Twitter.

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  3. That's really awesome to know. Twitter is pretty much used the world over, but I had no idea African users are well into Twitter. It's a great platform to voice out concerns and interests anyway.

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  4. Wow thanks for sharing this information and statistics. I learn something new about Africa. I am a twitter user as well.

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  5. Social media is really connecting the world. Even in remote places, people use Internet. Good to know about this statistics of African twitter use.

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  6. I loved it back when Twitter (and other social media channels) are used mainly for virtual socialization and not advertising/marketing. It's good that it's still being used for what it was made for somewhere, and not dominated by brands and companies.

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  7. Your blog is a good source for information about internet issues in Africa. We know very little about Africa and this information is interesting.

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  8. Wow, I believe not many people know about this! But is there a reason why you want to get this message out? Like for the Africans?

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  9. It's that twitter is used across the different purposes which are socially relevant in Africa. There should be a better patronage for twitter there.

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  10. Charities and non-profits have also recognized the power of social media because, nowadays, one can donate his or her social media feed, especially Twitter, for a particular cause. I have done so for a UN agency and for the Earth Hour. It's good that Twitter is providing a voice for many Africans.

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  11. Seems like African's are just as engaged as anyone else. I'm not truly a fan of Twitter however and tend to stay away.

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  12. Even I had underestimated Twitter all these years. Very recently, a couple months back I realized the power of Twitter with Chennai's worst rain of the century. Now I'm much more active there...

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  13. Maybe it's time Twitter will have the domain in all social medias sharing. Twitter for me is the fastest way to get news and feeding us more facts post or links. It should be use worldwide.

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