On Friday the 4th of October 2013, it was reported that a number of billboards were erected on the N1 & N3 highways in Gauteng. The billboards had the following message: “e-tolls proudly brought to you by ANC” the billboards caused a stir in the media as no one took ownership of them. On Saturday, it became clear that DA, South Africa’s opposition party, was behind the messaging on billboards. Interesting, isn’t it?
On Monday the 7th of October 2013, the ANC spokesman launched a twitter campaign using the hashtag #ProudlyBroughtbyANC, to tweet positive changes that happened since the ANC-led government came into power, however the hashtag was hijacked & people used it to rant about their dissatisfaction with the ANC-led government.
Source: Topsy.com (click on image to enlarge)
To see the tweets, click here
Based on the above graph, it seems as though most of the huge spikes were caused by the negative comments.
The top 9 influencers were:
Source: Topsy.com (click on image to enlarge)
Based on the retweets which the tweeps got, ANC spokesman (Jackson Mthembu) was the most influential person who tweeted using the hashtag.
Since the hashtag was still trending 48 hours later with over 25K mentions & Jackson Mthembu was the top influencer, is it safe to say the campaign was a success?………Besides, there is no such thing as bad publicity, right?
