Will South Africa’s real Top Twits please stand up
Posted on July 7, 2011Update : See the final list here : j-j.co.za/toptwits (updated monthly)
The Strategy Worx recently released their ‘Social Media in SA – The Numbers‘ Report for Quarter two. Makes some interesting reading. There is some discussion on Google Plus here.
In the report is a list of the Top 20 South African twitter personalities. The list was interesting, but on reflection seemed to be missing some of the people who I would have expected to be in the report. There appear to be some obvious missing ones eg. DJ Fresh 98 656 followers and Pigspotter (Cliff) with 61 000 Jack Parrow 22 281 Steven Pienaar (ok, he lives in the UK most of the time) 67 480 John Robbie 23 377, Bryan Habana 46 270 etc etc
I quickly posted a question on the discussion asking what was the selection criteria for this? After going back and reading the report more closely I found the reference : http://twitaholic.com/top100/following/bylocation/South%20Africa/
Going onto Twitaholic and playing a little gave some insight into the problem. The query used only picks you up if you list South Africa (Country), not City, Country (Eg. Durban South Africa).
This is very clear, Bruce Attridge in Durban, South Africa has 213 000 followers and is top of the Durban list, but doesn’t come up (would be 1st) in the South Africa query. Problem. Playing a bit more and you find that Durban, Durban South Africa and South Africa all produce different lists.
To top it all off, looking at the follower numbers shows some more problems. I am listed way down on the list (not that I have that many followers), but the numbers were vastly different from what Twitter shows as my followers. It seems the list is quite dated. If you click on a user, there is a button to “Update my Stats!” which can be used once a day. A manual process – though some numbers are more recent than others. Ok, so the data is flawed.
I started looking for other sources of information to find SA’s top Twits. I found Fuseware’s twitter report 2010. A bit dated, and seems as bad if not worse than Twitaholic. Then I found Twitter Counter. It allows you to search by time zone. Most South African’s have “Harare/Pretoria” selected. Ran a search with that and came up with another set of results.
Again, this didn’t tie up with the various Twitaholic results and my knowledge of those I follow. What to do.
Take the best of the lot. Combine them all, sort them, knowing that the information is inaccurate, but that the combine result would be better than none. So that is what I did, ran all the queries, cleaned up the results and mangled them into a spreadsheet. I went through some of them and verified/updated the numbers based on what Twitter itself was reporting, so we really have a mix. That said, it is better than what was out there and is a good start, probably with a whole lot more work to be done.
I verified the top 20 (and some others) to the current numbers listed in Twitter, then sorted by numbers of followers. Take it with a pinch of salt, and then add more salt 🙂
So here they are: (South) Africa’s top 50 Twits (the rough and ready guide)
Pastor Chris (PastorChrisLive) : Africa : 1033857 Bruce Attridge (@Brat13) : Durban, South Africa : 236513 Gareth Cliff (GarethCliff) : South Africa : 145251 Graeme Smith (GraemeSmith49) : South Africa : 124477 Thato Fresh Sikwane (@DJFreshSA) : ÜT: -26.097024,27.951438 : 98829 Humor Negro (HumorNegroo) : Africa : 71598 Cliff-that's all. (PigSpotter) : Johannesburg : 61092 Tina Cook (@Tinacook) : South Africa : 59573 5FM (@5FM) : Johannesburg, South Africa : 57888 Julius Sello Malema (@Julius_S_Malema) : Johannesburg, South Africa : 56528 Nico Baird (@nicobaird) : South Africa : 50109 Euphonik (@euphonik) : ÜT: -26.146292,28.037067 : 47666 Bryan Habana® (@BryanHabana) : Cape Town : 46358 Emmanuel & Abbie (@LifeCanBeDffrnt) : Centurion, South Africa : 42673 Social Cancer Cure (@Erica__B) ** unsure if this is SA ** : TwiTTerVerSe : 40296 Sizwe Dhlomo (@SizweDhlomo) : (not listed) : 40049 David Graham (@DavidGrahamSA) : : 36382 NINJA (DieAntwoord) : Cape Town : 35698 Business Report (@busrep) : : 33849 Bob Skinstad (@BobSkinstad) : Cape Town : 32238 Eran Eyal (EranEyal) : Cape Town : 28633 Online Beauty (online_beauty) : South Africa : 25922 Lira (@Miss_LIRA) : : 25241 sasha martinengo (@F1sasha) : : 25199 News24 (News24) : South Africa : 23479 Christian Republic (@BibleThoughts) : Cape Town, South Africa : 22613 Club808 (@Club808) : : 22317 Adesoji Oseni (Adesoji) : Africa : 21990 Francois Du Plessis (@faf1307) : Pretoria : 19839 Edwin Lange (@big_edlange) : Kempton Park, South Africa : 18404 MTVbaseAfrica - REAL (@MTVbaseAfrica) : : 17540 Big Brother Africa (BigBroAfrica) : Africa : 16769 Neels De Lange (@NeelsDL) : South Africa : 16540 Quinton Carroll (BigProfit) : South Africa : 16129 Nora Shalaby (@norashalaby) : : 16128 geoffrey gordon (geoffreygordon) : South Africa : 15960 Vodacom (Vodacom) : South Africa : 15819 Justin Harrison (justinharrison) : South Africa : 15721 Guerrilla Warfare™ (@Guerrillawar) : : 15658 geoffrey gordon (@geoffreygordon) : South Africa : 15555 Ory Okolloh (@kenyanpundit) : : 15322 Trevor Madondo (@TrevorMadondo) : : 15073 SA Child (kidsdirect) : South Africa : 15036 Jodene (@jodenecoza) : Jozi, Sunny SA : 14670 Wayne G Turner (@waynegturner) : : 14517 Donnette Davis ?_? (donnette) : South Africa : 14286 Idols South Africa (@IdolsSA) : : 13941 94.7 Highveld Stereo (947Highveld) : Johannesburg : 13612 Follow Formula 1 -F1 (followf1) : South Africa : 13429 GCE (@globaleducation) : : 13251
I will shortly make this available as a Google Docs spreadsheet so that it can easily be accessed an updated, and the Source easily seen. In the meantime, please provide comments, feedback and let me know if any Top Twits are missing.
In the meantime here is the PDFSouth Africa’s Top Twits – Draft 1 25_7_2011 (for those that care).
Tags: africa, best twitter, most followers, research, Social Media, south africa, top twits, top twitter, top twitter users, Twitter
Categories: Research, Social Media, Uncategorized
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