Johannesburg experienced one of the busiest periods on Twitter this past week, as shown by the many trending hashtags related to the city, including:
#CEOSleepOutZA #COJEDI #joburggonegreen #innercityroadmap #HackJoziChallenge #loadshedding #FathersDay #VisitJoburg #ExploreJoburg #SmartCity #innovment #AccentureIC2015 #SAITEX #Powerrestoredjhb #YouthDay #VulindlelaeJozi #IaM76 #June16
Let’s explore the performance of the world class African city’s Twitter handle some more.
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@CityofJoburg's key milestone went unnoticed
The city engaged actively in the conversations above through its @CityofJoburgZA Twitter handle.
As an example, in the first 19 hours of today until 19H00 (on a Sunday), @CityofJoburgZA had posted over 120 tweets, more than 80% of which were a combination of RT’s and Replies!
The city’s hectic schedule resulted in a key milestone going unnoticed, and that is what this post is about. But first…
@CityofJoburg's Twitter follower target
… We published a post on the 30th of March titled “South Africa’s leading cities battle it out on #socialmedia“, where we revealed that City of Joburg was targeting 100 000 Twitter followers by the end of June. As at that date, @CityofJoburg was followed by 75 490 Twitterers.
@CityofJoburg earned its 100 000th Twitter follower
We would like to congratulate the City for achieving their target. What makes this special is that the target was achieved on the eve of June 16.
Congratulations @CityofJoburgZA! You just reached the milestone of 100,000 followers on Twitter. http://t.co/JJ2xcnYq5o
— Super Milestones (@supermilestones) June 15, 2015

And indeed, numbers do not lie:
We noted though that there was not much said online about this milestone, even by the City itself.

@CityofJoburg is socially engaged
It is not surprising that @CityofJoburgZA grew by a third in 3 months, the City’s social media team – who are full-time employees dedicated to engaging on social networks, are active virtually 24-7.
@CityofJoburgZA TK wish we had more people like u around. Committed and passionate about your job. @tlangimaya
— Asaad Abrahams (@asaad448) June 20, 2015
Note that the conversation above happened last night around 11pm.
Equally important, the city is highly engaged on Twitter, as shown by a split of its tweets, the bulk of which are RT followed by Replies.

In closing
Here are comparative Twitter follower growth stats for the two most active cities in South Africa – @CityofJoburg and @CityofCT (Cape Town)
