Top 10 most popular social media platforms in Africa

A lot of people out there whether in their offices, business places, schools and even churches use social media platforms on a daily basis. They want to get connected to their loved ones which is the primary reason or just view content. Many social media platforms out there make these possible with their different features.

Social media platforms are being used extremely in Africa. Let’s take a look and discover the top 10 most popular social media platforms in Africa.

1. Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media platform in Africa with over hundreds of millions of users in Africa. There were more than 210 million active Facebook users in Africa as at the 11th of March 2020. In May 2021, there were over 25million Facebook users in South Africa.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerbeg along with some Harvard college students and roommates. Facebook was founded in 2004 and the CEO is Mark Zukerbeg. Today Facebook is known as meta. Facebook allows its users to connect with family and friends and can be accessed with devices such as personal computers, smartphones and tablets.

Another social media platform in Africa that does basically what Facebook does and more is ConnectYu. ConnectYu is a Social Networking Platform that empowers Africans by connecting them to a vast network of people all across Africa and the world at large. ConnectYu helps you make strategic connections based on interest and opportunity. ConnectYu is a one-stop online platform build by Africans for Africans.

2. Whatsapp

WhatsApp is ranked the second on the list as the most used social media platform in Africa. Kenya is top of the list for Africa with a massive WhatsApp usage of 97%, with South Africa 96% and Nigeria (95%) ranking second and third respectively.

WhatsApp is owned by meta platforms which owns Facebook. It allows users to send text messages and also voice messages, make video and audio calls, share images, documents and more. WhatsApp can be accessed with mobile phones and desktops so long as the users phone is connected.

3. YouTube

YouTube is massively used in Africa with Africans creating and sharing videos. YouTube recorded a base of over 24 million people in South Africa, with World Wide Worx’s data showing around 16 million active viewers.

YouTube is owned by google, it was launched by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim on February 14, 2005. It is an American online video sharing and social media platform. YouTube is the second most visited website after google.

4. Instagram

The amount Instagram users in Africa have increased rapidly over the past few years. In South Africa, there were over 6.3million Instagram users as of July 2021.

Instagram was founded by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. It is an American photo and video sharing social networking service. Instagram was originally launched for iOS in 2010 and the android version was later released in 2012.

5. Twitter

Twitter has a large number of users in Africa when it comes social media usage in Africa. Twitter registers 7.7 million users monthly in South Africa and 2.2million users monthly in Kenya.

Twitter allows users to post and interact with messages known as “tweets”. It is as American microblogging and social networking service. Users who are registered can post, like, and retweet tweets while unregistered users can only read those that publicly available.

6. Facebook messenger

Millions of people in Africa use Facebook messenger as their messaging app. The number of Facebook Messenger users reached over 24.9 million users in South Africa as of August 2021.

Messenger was developed by Meta Platforms and it is used to send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio, and files, and also react to other users' messages and interact with bots.

7. LinkedIn

The amount of LinkedIn users is growing rapidly. In South Africa, the number of LinkedIn users reached 9.46 million as of December 2021. There were 900 thousand new accounts over the 12 months reviewed.

LinkedIn was launched in on May 5, 2003. It is an American business and employment oriented online service. It is used for professional networking and career development. It allows job seekers to post their CV’s and employers to post jobs.

8. TikTok

TikTok is gaining popularity in Africa. In South Africa, the number of TikTok users have grown from grew from 5m to 9m since January 2020.

TikTok is a video focused social media networking service. It is owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance Ltd. TikTok was launched in 2017. It allows users to do short videos of different genres like pranks, stunts, tricks, jokes, dance and entertainment.

9. Snapchat

Snapchat has millions of users in Africa with the highest number of users in Nigeria with over 2.14million users and South Africa second with over 1.4million users.

Snapchat was developed by snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before they become inaccessible to their recipients

10. Skype

Over the years, the amount of skype users in Africa is increasing considerably. Skype was first released in 2003 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, in cooperation with four Estonian developers. It specializes in providing VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, debit-based calls to landline and mobile telephones (over traditional telephone networks), and other features.

Conclusion

As we have seen, social media platforms are massively used in Africa with Facebook and WhatsApp being the most used. Africans stay highly connected on the internet connecting with their family, friends and loved ones.

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

By: Bobe Nkwain Chiambah