CorpComms Magazine

South Africans are the most active tweeters in African generating more than five million tweets during the fourth quarter last year, according to a new report by Portland Communications and Tweetminster.

How Africa Tweets, which analyses more than 11.5 million tweets originating from the African continent in the last three months of 2011, found that South Africans sent twice as many tweets as Kenyans, who sent almost 2.5 million during the period, and more than three times the amount sent by Nigerians who tweeted 1.65 million times. Egypt, with more than 1.2 million tweets, and Morocco, with almost 750,000 tweets, rounded up the five most active countries on Twitter.

Almost six in ten tweets (57 per cent) sent from Africa are sent from mobile devices, while six in ten of the continent's most active tweeters are aged between 20 and 29.

The report found that Twitter is most widely used for social conversation, with 81 per cent of Africans using the social network to communicate with friends, but that 68 per cent now use Twitter to monitor news. This revelation reinforces the pivotal role that Twitter played in the events of North Africa last year.

Mark Flanagan, partner for digital communications at Portland, said: 'One of the more surprising findings of this research is that more public figures have not joined Africa's burgeoning Twittersphere. With some notable exceptions, we found that business and political leaders were largely absent from the debates playing out on Twitter across the continent.'

share me: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Tweet