I am heading off to Nairobi in a few days’ time for another strategic #digitalbranding seminar that is targeted at corporate Kenya, in partnership with Brand Quad Africa. It’s been a privilege doing business in Silicon Savannah for 4 years now.
As part of preparation for the seminar, I have been scouring the Internet for most recent key market events. One such event is the news that President Uhuru Kenyatta won the continental President of the Year 2014/2015 Award for his outstanding leadership.
VIDEO: President Uhuru Kenyatta wins Africa’s President of the Year Award http://t.co/Q5et7WbMXapic.twitter.com/1grDIn2yXX
— Daily Nation (@dailynation) July 2, 2015
Interestingly, some of the netizens – presumably Kenyans – voiced their opposition to President Kenyatta being the recipient of this award, and I wondered whether his social media profile can be used to either support or rebut this negative sentiment.
President Kenyatta’s social media profile
First, President Kenyatta is the biggest Twitterer by followers in his country, followed by NTV and Citizen TV – both tv broadcasters.
Source: SocialBakers
Note that Kenya has one of the most active Twitter communities in Africa. With the President posting 2,3 tweets per day, this makes him an above-average Twitterer.
Second, President Kenyatta has largest number of Twitter followers of all Heads of Africa’s top 10 largest economies, and his Twitter community is more than twice bigger than that of his runner-up – President Jacob Zuma (386K).
Third, President Kenyatta comes second only after President Paul Kagame – who has just over 1 million Twitter followers – in the East African Community (EAC). However, the Kenyan president’s tweeting is more engaging, as shown by comparative tweeting behaviours of the two Heads of State.
Source: Twtrland
President Kenyatta is “chatty” on Twitter, as shown by a comparatively wider spread of different types of tweets (left pie chart above). In addition, the biggest percentage of tweets have pictures in them.
Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites and 150% more retweets http://t.co/iBO37gTr9T
— eNitiate (@The_eNitiaters) July 6, 2015
In comparison, 9 in 10 tweets from President Kagame are replies. This indicates that The Rwandan President uses his Twitter account predominantly as a social CRM channel that responds to relevant mentions, and hardly initiates conversations (1 in 10 is plain tweets). Given his direct and robust style of communication, I doubt if President Kagame generally engages in small talk with his followers and other Twitterers. But this is my opinion.
Question:
Does President Kenyatta’s social media status, as illustrated with social analytics above, prove his popularity in Kenya – a country with one of the highest Twitter traffic – and possibly the rest of Africa and the world?
[polldaddy poll=8965777]
