Local mobile social network Mxit has confirmed its reach and popularity with the influential youth market in the recent 2014 South African elections.
According to the mobile social network, a significant number of its users subscribed to numerous political organisations, voting and news apps that outperformed other mobile social competitors in terms of following.
The important 18 to 25-year-old market that makes up approximately 50% of Mxit's user base was the most active user segment on these apps. In many instances, 70% of subscribers to relevant apps were from this age group, says Ben-Carl Havemann, marketing and communications manager at Mxit.
"Although we cannot make any assumptions about the actual effect it had on voting participation, we did see a noteworthy increase in the proportional number of voters in this age bracket who subscribed to relevant political organisation and voting apps on Mxit," he notes.
According to Havemann, the significant size of the audiences can largely be attributed to Mxit's data-light functionality that provides many young South Africans with their primary access to the Internet via their feature phone, and the highly creative methods employed by app owners to engage users and encourage participation.
He notes that through social media and mobile applications, political parties are now far more accessible and have the flexibility to respond to their followers about events, media stories and current affairs with far more immediacy than before. By being responsive through this sense of immediacy, political organisations can go a long way in building credibility in terms of listening and responding to their followers.
Agang allowed users to create community groups by location or interest. Members who joined the group could then create topics and post comments to a forum-style wall. Group creators, or leaders, could also send announcements and updates to their group members.
The ANC hosted a series of "Live Chat" sessions on their MyANC app, where a number of government ministers engaged thousands of young people in a promoted 1-hour session. It allowed users to ask questions and voice concerns directly to high-ranking officials and decision-makers.
The DA's game "DemocraCITY" allowed users to take control of a virtual country and look after its people. In a fun and interactive way it addressed a wide range of socio-political challenges as they led their community to prosperity. In less than a month the game had been played 134 000 times and generated more 18 million page views.
"If you look at the progression from the previous elections to the 2014 elections, it's clear that social media is a very relevant, very powerful tool, giving the political organisations unprecedented access to bigger audiences on a more immediate level, says Havermann.
To him, the interest shown by the subscribers to these apps on social media and Mxit specifically, together with the keen engagement in the ANC's Live Chats and the DA's simulation game, DemocraCITY, there is a huge opportunity for the political parties to invest and engage going forward.
According to Mxit, Agang gathered 38 411 followers on the apps created on the platform. The DA had 420 081 while the ANC garnered 440 230 compared to other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, where none of the parties reached more than 200 000 followers.
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