As election fever gathers momentum, South African political parties are looking to harness the power of home-grown mobile social networking platform Mxit.
The 2014 South African general election will be held on 7 May to elect a new National Assembly as well as new provincial legislatures in each province.
Mxit is a popular social platform among the youth and has 7.3 million active users across the African continent.
Following the highly successful voter registration drives by the IEC on Mxit earlier this year, the ANC, DA and Agang have used some creative methods to rally support and promote engagement on the South African mobile social network.
According to a recent study by World Wide Worx, Mxit has remained stable, as it feels the effects of competing instant messaging services like WhatsApp and 2Go, as well as from the growth of social networking on phones.
The market research firm says initial findings showed that the Mxit user base had fallen significantly in the past year. However, it argues that when taking into account a change in the way the service measures active users - from being on the network over 90 days to being on in the last 30 days - Mxit appears have turned a corner.
Earlier this year, the ANC unveiled a mobile app on Mxit as it vies for the youth vote in this year's national elections. The party is hosting a series of "Live Chat" sessions on its MyANC app, where a number of government ministers engage thousands of young people in a promoted one-hour session.
It allows users to ask questions and voice concerns directly to high-ranking officials and decision makers.
Agang allowed users to create community groups by location or interest on their Mxit app. 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 from within the app to the members of their group.
The DA opted for an interactive game as Mxit has one of the biggest gaming communities in SA. The DA's game, DemocraCITY, allows a user to take control of a virtual country and look after its people.
In a fun and interactive way, it addresses a wide range of socio-political challenges and users need to make decisions and take actions on matters ranging from the building of schools, coping with natural disasters, resisting bribes and confronting corruption as they lead "their" community to prosperity. The game is currently generating more than 1.3 million page impressions per day.
Activity across the board is set to increase over the next few days as Mxit offers a strategic opportunity for political parties to speak directly to their voters in this very important election year.
"Political parties understand the far-reaching potential of Mxit as a medium to give the youth an opportunity to make their voice heard in an environment which they are familiar with, whilst at the same time educating them about viewpoints," says Francois Swart, CEO of Mxit.
The ANC currently has more than 420 000 subscribers to their apps, the DA 390 000 and Agang just over 38 000.
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