#SAElections2019:-How-SA's-Top-3-Political-Parties-Fare-

#SAElections2019: How SA's Top 3 Political Parties Fare On Social Media-From 2014 - 2019

By Joburg Post

As South Africans go to the polls, political parties have been heavily involved in the social media phenomenon.

Social media has and continues to be powerful source of connecting to the electorate but the popularity of a political figure on social media may not necessarily translate into actual electoral support, especially given the low social media penetration in South Africa.

Here is how the top 3 political parties fare on social media:

Leader size on Twitter:

#1 Julius Malema: 2 390 000 followers from 439 902

#2 Mmusi Maimane: 1 100 000 followers from 32 900

#3 Cyril Ramaphosa: 509 000 followers from 0

Leader growth on Twitter:

#1 Mmusi Maimane: 3,343% increase over 5 years (from 32 900 to 1 100 000 followers)

#2 Cyril Ramaphosa: 51% increase over 10 months, as no data from 2014 (from 248 000 to 509 000 followers)

#3 Julius Malema: 81.59% increase over 5 years (from 439 902 to 1 380 000 followers)

Parties' growth on Twitter:

#1 EFF: 94.42%

#2 DA: 86.60%

#3 ANC: 82.54%

vs Twitter Growth of 39.7%

Party growth on Facebook:

#1 DA: 83.67%

#2 EFF: 80.16%

#3 ANC: 76.61%

vs Facebook growth of 57.0%

The top 3 parties grew an average of 88.2% increase whereas Twitter only grew 39.7% (October 2018).

The top 3 parties grew an average of 80.15% whereas Facebook grew 57% (October 2018).

It is clear that politics is as important to the politicians as it is to the platforms in which they publish their content on.

On Twitter when you combine the parties and their leadership followings it is clear whom has the most reach of the parties and their leaders.

Parties & leaders combined on Twitter:

EFF + Julius Malema combined: 3.128m

DA + Mmusi Maimane combined: 1.651m

ANC + Cyril Ramaphosa combined: 1.158m

Based on the historic 5 year growth, this is the forecasted growth to the next elections in May 2024:

Leaders' size on Twitter:

#1 Julius Malema: 4.340m followers

#2 Cyril Ramaphosa: 4.212m followers

#3 Mmusi Maimane: 2.167m followers

Parties on Twitter:

#1 EFF: 1.430m followers

#2 ANC: 1.184m followers

#3 DA: 1.028m followers

Parties on Facebook:

#1 DA: 978,000 likes

#2 ANC: 935 000 likes

#3 EFF: 744 000 likes

-JP

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#SAElections2019: How SA's Top 3 Political Parties Fare On Social Media-From 2014 - 2019

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