#HowAfricaTweets report of 2011 and 2016

A report known as How Africa Tweets #HowAfricaTweets yearly digs deep into Twitter use on different continents by use of geo-located Tweets originating from the continents and countries examining the cities that are the most active, what languages are being used the most and what issues are driving the conversation online.


In the first ever attempt to comprehensively map the use of Twitter in Africa, Portland and Tweetminster analysed over 11.5 million geo-located Tweets originating on the continent during the last three months of 2011. This pan-African analysis of Twitter traffic was complemented by a survey of 500 of Africa’s most active Tweeters.

In that year 2011, South Africa was the continent’s most active country by volume of geo-located Tweets, with over twice as many Tweets (5,030,226 during Q4 2011) as the next most active Kenya (2,476,800). Nigeria (1,646,212), Egypt (1,214,062) and Morocco (745,620) make up the remainder of the top five most active countries.It was found that 57% of Tweets from Africa are sent from mobile devices and 60% of the most active Tweeters are aged 20-29.

 “We saw the pivotal role of Twitter in the events in North Africa last year, but it is clear that Africa’s Twitter revolution is really just beginning. Twitter is helping Africa and Africans to connect in new ways and swap information and views. And for Africa – as for the rest of the world – that can only be good.”

 Said Beatrice Karanja, Associate Director and head of Portland Nairobi in 2011.

Now in the year 2016, the third research of how Africa tweets researched into the top 5000 hashtags across Africa in 2015 and found that Africa surpasses US and UK in using Twitter for political conversations. Political talks grew by 10% even though showbiz and entertainment took the center points of the discussions.

In the just concluded Ugandan elections– there were so much online activity especially with Twitter. Hashtags were used by the top 3 presidential candidates daily to put across their message to the online publics. From late 2015 to 2016 after the Presidential election the hashtag #UgandaDecides had over 1500 tweets. Even with the Social media blackout a significant amount of tweets were sent out via VPNs (Virtual Private Networks).

In Kenya different political based hashtags from corruption to political campaigns have been trending including international Twitter wars against countries and international media organsations that portray Kenya badly #SomeoneTellCNN which further grew to #UhuruTellsCNN and lastly not forgetting hashtags on the ICC (International Criminal Court) cases of Kenya's Dep. President Hon. William Samoei Ruto and KassFM Journalist Joshua arap Sang at the Hague.


Apart from coming out at the 4th position, #Kenya was named one of the most widely shared Twitter hash tags in Africa, the report says. Kenya was also named the tech hub of Africa in April 2015 even at its 40% unemployment rate.

Portland hopes that this survey will serve as a benchmark for measuring the evolution of Twitter use in Africa, shedding new light on how Africa communicates nationally, regionally and internationally.