Facebook tops in marketing use in Africa

Facebook retained its lead as the most used social media platform for marketing in Africa, according to findings of a new survey by media monitoring and analysis firm Meltwater.

Meltwater’s State of Social Media 2023, which polled more than 1,700 marketing and communications professionals globally, shows 88 per cent of marketers in Africa used the Meta-owned platform to promote their products in 2022.

Instagram, which is also owned by Meta, was used by 76 per cent while LinkedIn closed the top three with a usage of 74 per cent.

Twitter emerged fourth with a usage of 67 per cent while messaging app WhatsApp, which is also owned by Meta, closed the top five with a 58 per cent use.

The survey however noted rapid growth in the use of viral short video content platform TikTok by marketers in Africa seeking to utilize the fast-growing popularity of the Chinese-owned app especially by the youth.

Some 28 per cent of the respondents said they used TikTok for marketing.

Globally, the use of TikTok for marketing grew by 30 per cent last year compared to 16 per cent in 2021, said the survey.

“Globally, five channels continue to dominate social media marketing: Facebook (89 per cent), LinkedIn (87 per cent) and Instagram (84 per cent) top the list, while YouTube (67 per cent) and Twitter (66 per cent) are close behind,” said the survey.

The survey findings reveal that the importance of social media is increasing among organisations due to global economic uncertainty.

More than half of the survey respondents (52 per cent) stated that economic uncertainty has made social media a more important channel for their organisation with brand awareness remaining as a priority for firms.

“With current uncertainty in the economic climate, many brands are embracing innovation to get more from their marketing budgets. A thoughtful social media strategy allows marketers to gain and retain customer attention in a way that is highly efficient, cost-effective, and measurable,” said Lays Bammesberger, an enterprise account executive at the firm.

“We’re not surprised to see that respondents are looking to increase their brand awareness using these tools,” she said.

The survey results showed that increasing brand awareness (81 per cent) and brand engagement (60 per cent) emerged top of the agenda across both business-to-business and business-to-customer firms as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

However, while the top two social media goals appear to be brand-related, only 23 per cent of organisations use brand reputation as a key metric, said the survey.

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