Due to the rapid evolution of the Internet, facts and figures are continuously changing. Social networks are growing everyday and it is hard to think of a life without them. Recently a few reports on social networking in South Africa have emerged which provide some interesting insight into this online space.
TNS Research Surveys conducted some interesting research with MWEB entitled Friendship 2.0. Questions broadly focused on the type of Internet access individuals were using and then delved down into the connectedness of social networks and what these networks were being used for.
From MWEB and TNS Research Surveys - The Friendship 2.0 Survey (September 2009)
- 74% of respondents list social networking as an activity they do online.
The graph represents which social networks South Africans belong to or make use of. Image Credit: Baitbox
Two more recent reports look at specific social networks, Facebook and Twitter. Facebakers provides updates Facebook statistics on a daily basis. South Africa ranks number 27 in the world in terms of the number of Facebook users. There was quite an increase of South African users towards the end of May. Most users range between 18 and 34 years old.
From Facebakers - Facebook Statistics South Africa (June 2009)
- Number of users on Facebook in South Africa: 2 833 860.
- Number of male users on Facebook in South Africa: 1 342 340.
- Number of female users on Facebook in South Africa: 1 413 080.
- Penetration in South Africa: 5.82 %.
- Online penetration in South Africa: 61.74 %.
Fuseware conducted an extensive analysis of South African tweeters between March and April 2010 – SA Twitter Report 2010. Research of this kind has never been carried out in South Africa and it has provided some interesting insight to the users of Twitter. Twitter is ranked as the 7th most visited site in South Africa. There are approximately 55 000 active users of Twitter (at least 1 tweet a month) who generate about 1.5 million tweets per month.
The content of these tweets according to Fusebox is as follows:
- Retweets: 23%
- Questions: 17.3%
- Contain links: 24.5%
- Address other users: 47%
Most South Africans tend to tweet at night between 7 and 8pm. Tweeting first thing in the morning as well as over lunch also appear to be popular times with Tuesday being the most popular day. Geographically in South Africa, over one third of Twitter addicts are found in Cape Town, with Joburg following closely behind:
The majority of South African Twitter users come from Cape Town. Image Credit: Fuseware
Fusebox also took a look into what type of occupation the population of South African tweeters is involved in. The top results included designer, student, writer, engineer and artist with many other occupations representing smaller segments. The content of the yweets was also looked at in particular reference to the brands that were mentioned. Below is a tag cloud with all the brands that were mentioned; the bigger the word, the more mentions it received. Most of these mentions held a negative sentiment:
Some of the brands commonly mentioned on Twitter. Image Credit: Fuseware
South Africans are increasingly making use of these social platforms to stay connected. More in depth research into specific social networks will provide much needed profiling of the typical South African social network user. Twitter does allow for far more insight due to the platform providing far less protected content as opposed to Facebook, so the Fusebox research into Twitter may still be a long way off for Facebook.
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