Protea's captain AB de Villiers, media personality Bonang Matheba and politician Helen Zille make up the list of South Africa's most followed personalities.
This is according to recent research findings released by digital agency, BlackSmoke. The aim of the research was to put together a list of SA's top 10 most followed celebrities on the three leading social media platforms Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
According to the list, which applies up to August this year, cricketer De Villiers tops the spot as the most popular among South African Twitterati with a staggering 2.68 million Twitter followers. This also makes him the most followed personality in the male category.
Comedian Trevor Noah ranks in at second place with 2.63 million followers, while television host Matheba follows closely at 1.23 million fans. This position also makes Matheba the most followed female in the country. Scooping the fourth position is radio and television personality Minenhle Dlamini, who has 1.06 million followers. This makes her second in the female category.
Famous for her contentious tweets, Western Cape premier Zille is the third most popular female on Twitter with 763 000 followers.
The same overall findings for Facebook show a different set of results. Left-handed cricketer, David Miller and comedian Noah both lead the pack at 2.7 million. This list is followed by famous house music disk jockeys Black Coffee and Zinhle Jiyane, who have 1.2 million and 700 000 fans respectively.
On Instagram, Dlamini takes the crown with 554 000 followers, followed by Matheba with 534 000 fans. In third place is DJ Cassper Nyovest with just over 400 000 followers.
Significant influence
Not only does this research show the numbers, but it also provides some interesting facts and insights about these celebs and the influence created by the number of followers they have on social media.
BlackSmoke MD Wiseman Sedibe says the number of followers a person has on social media can largely contribute to the amount of influence they have on their peers and the society at large.
"This can also dictate how much money celebrities could potentially earn when approached by brands," he says.
Analytic methodology
Talking about the methodology used, Sedibe says: "A couple of social media analytic tools assisted us in unravelling these findings such as Socialbakers and Twittonomy to rank the most followed people in South Africa. From that list we verified individuals manually with a team of highly qualified colleagues."
Through these findings, the agency says it wanted to get a better understanding of celebrities: their social media behaviour and how they build millions of followings in order to help their personal brands.
The study also revealed that six of the top ten men on Twitter are cricketers, including Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis, who are both retired. The oldest among SA's top ten men on Twitter is DJ Fresh who was born in April 1977, while the youngest is musician Nyovest, who is 25 years old.
To read further about the findings of this research, click on the BlackSmoke Web site.
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