Africa: Understanding Africa's Social Media Storm - Facebook Experiments With How to Make Itself the 'On-Ramp' for First-Time Internet Users

London — Facebook took Africa by storm and became the social media that everyone seemed to be on. Now Facebook is experimenting (with mobile operators) to use Facebook as the way of attracting first-time users to the Internet.
Russell Southwood reviews Balancing Act research on social media use in four African countries and talks to Nicola D'Elia, Head of Growth and Partnerships, EMEA, Facebook on what it's trying to achieve.
One of the things a recently published major market research study by Balancing Act (click on www.balancingact-africa.com and look in the right-hand column. It's free to download) looks at is the state of the social media market in four African countries. It's a sign of how fast the market moves that What'sApp was not on
the radar in Africa when the questionnaires were being written.
The face-to-face, nationally or regionally representative samples cover: Ghana, Northern Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania. The percentages below are based on those who use social media and are for those doing so once a day or more: in other words, regular users:
Ghana
Facebook 55%
Google+ 18%
Twitter 27%
You Tube 16%
Eskimi 5%
MXit 5%
2Go 5%
biNu 3%
Northern Nigeria
Facebook 53%
2Go 44%
Google+ 27%
MXit 7%
Eskimi 4%
Twitter 3%
biNu 2%
You Tube 1%
Senegal
Facebook 57%
Google+ 23%
You Tube 24%
Twitter 16%
FaceDakar 7%
Eskimi 5%
2Go 5%
biNu 3%
Twoo 2%
Hi5 2%
MXit 1%
Tanzania
Facebook 71%
Twitter 51%
Google+ 40%
You Tube 34%
2Go 3%
biNu 2%
MXit 1%
Eskimi 1%
There are five key conclusions that can be drawn from this data:

Africa

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