With over 400 million mobile phone subscribers, the African market is one of the largest in the world. The growth of mobile telephony now allows Africans to have access to the internet via their mobile phone and every year more and more of them end up on social media.
Social media enable Africans to share information more easily and lead to new attitudes and new practices. The increasing use of social media in Africa is all the more remarkable because the number of Africans connected to the Internet is still quite low and the difficulties of getting connected are many.
Battle between different sites for the African market
The 100 million Internet users listed in 2010 Africa represent a tiny minority of two billion Internet users on the planet. However, the low Internet use in Africa contributes to the impressive development of the mobile Internet in Africa, whose growth rates are among the fastest in the world.
Thanks to their mobile phones, Africans massively join social media online. Facebook, the leading global social network with over 500 million subscribers, is the most visited website in most African countries. The site recorded a spectacular growth on the continent in 2010 and had over 17 million subscribers against only 10 million in 2009.
Such strong growth prospects today encourage large companies to pay more attention to Africa. After launching several versions in some major African languages (including Swahili, Hausa and Zulu) in May, Facebook announced it would offer free access to mobile phone users in many countries.
Google is testing a new service in several regions of the continent. Tentatively called Baraza ("meeting place" in Swahili), it will allow users to interact by asking and answering questions of local or regional interest.
Africans are also preparing to take advantage of the expected growth of the mobile Internet. In South Africa, MXit, a local mail account with around seven million users, has become the largest online social network. From Abidjan to Accra, Lusaka, Nairobi, African programmers develop, test and launch new platforms and new tools which are developed locally and for their audiences.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are among the most visited sites in most African countries.
Emergence of new behaviors
Social networks allow an entire generation of Africans to communicate and to gather. Being a real tool for organizing and campaigning, social networks have allowed the Tunisian and Egyptian youth to organize the fight against the authorities in Tunisia and Egypt. But beyond the political role, those networks allow Africans to share and be visible on the net.
Many celebrities, politicians, intellectuals or businesses and are present on these networks. For example, Didier Drogba, the Ivorian footballer and ambassador at the UN has nearly a million fans on Facebook. Dambisa Moyo, Zambian Economist and author of an essay on development aid, follows with 26000 people on Twitter.
Social media not only have a role in mobilizing crowds to get an important message but also represent a communication and marketing tool, which is essential for businesses. The South African media and companies like Kenya Airways for example, use these platforms to better interact with their customers. Insurance companies also have their eyes on social media to increase the number of subscribers in Africa.
