In this report, we analyse South Africas 50 most valuable brands in order to uncover the current social media landscape.

1. The State of Social Media
in South Africa
by Darsana Vijay
BROUGHT TO YOU BY IN ASSOCIATION WITH

2. An analysis of South Africa’s 50 most valuable brands1 revealed that 45
out of 50 brands have an active social media presence on one or more
social networks. However only 36% of these brands had accounts on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. Most notably, Instagram was
the least preferred social network for brands despite the higher than
average engagement other brands experience on this platform.
Let us take a closer look at how these brands used Facebook during the
year 2016.
The top 50 brands have been selected on the basis of this list: https://
businesstech.co.za/news/business/136833/these-are-the-50-most-valuable-brands-
in-south-africa-in-2016/
BRAND PRESENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS
1
0
15
30
45
Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram
No.ofBrands
No. of brands

3. On average, the top 50 brands had an audience of 377,249 on Facebook.
They also grew their Fan numbers by 35%. Yet, this trend is not uniform
and there are a few outliers, as you can notice in the chart below. Take a
look at the audience size and the growth rate of these brands:
Foschini had the highest growth rate – 140%. They added almost 1.5x
times more Fans that they did in the beginning of the year. Nampak on the
other hand had little or no Fan growth. By the end of the year, their
audience size dipped slightly from what it was at the beginning of the year.
Pick n Pay had the most number of Fans, surpassing 1.5 million. They
managed to grow their audience size by 25% during this period. MTN also
had over 1.3 million Fans. They experienced a Fan growth of 35%.
While some brands grew their Fan base at a steady pace, others
experienced sudden surges in the number of Fans. This could be for
different reasons. Let us take a look at two cases.
FAN GROWTH RATE
Growth

4. A marked rise could be seen in Foschini’s Fan numbers. The brand
experienced rapid Fan growth from July 16. There was also an increase in
the promoted Posts, which suggests that the brand ran ads as well,
thereby getting more people on their page.
FOSCHINI – FAN GROWTH OVER TIME
3000
2000
1000
0
7K
6K
5K
4K
3K
2K
1K
0
Jan 16 Dec 16NovOctSep NovJunMay Jul AugMarFeb Apr
Jan 16 Dec 16NovOctSep NovJunMay Jul AugMarFeb Apr
On May 10, Clicks added 6,299 new Fans. The surge in Clicks’ Fan
numbers coincided with a new campaign they ran - #FightFluFeelGood.
Ads that the brand ran as part of the campaign would have given a boost
to their growth rate.
CLICKS – FAN GROWTH OVER TIME

5. The South African brands studied here post quite regularly to Facebook.
Typically, in a year each brand posts 536 times. This is quite high
compared to the global standard. The average number of Posts published
by the top 100 brands according to the Interbrand list is 274. Clearly, the
brands studied in this report are heavy users of Facebook.
There were, however, a few outliers. Vodacom posted the most with 1,233
Posts, while Nampak had the least (22). The chart below shows the number
of Posts published by the top 10 brands (according to posting frequency).
VOLUME OF BRAND POSTS
Volume of Posts

6. There was no definite link between posting frequency and engagement.
The chart below shows the interactions that each brand received on
average. This includes engagement in terms of Likes, Comments and
Shares that the brand received per Post. This is placed alongside the
number of Posts published by each brand. (Only the top 10 brands in
terms of average engagement have been included here)
INTERACTIONS PER POST VS. POSTING FREQUENCY
On average, brands received 637 Likes, 53 Comments and 22 Shares
per Post. Carling Black Label was most engaging on Facebook, in terms
of average interactions. The brand came in first even when ranked
according to the Unmetric Engagement Score. Mr Price got the most
interactions overall. While Mr Price was the most ‘Like’d, Picknpay got the
most number of Shares.
Engagement

7. It is important to consider how promotion affects engagement. Promotion
gives a huge boost to the visibility of a Post, thereby leading to greater
interactions. If you still aren’t convinced, take a look at the difference in the
interactions a piece of promoted content fetched in comparison to organic
content:
ENGAGEMENT – ORGANIC VS. PAID
Avg. Interactions No. of Posts
In terms of volume, paid content amounted to a little less than 30% of
organic content. But the interactions per Post for paid content is 7.5 times
that of organic content.
Photos were the most popular content type among the brands studied
here. More than 75% of all the brand Posts were photos. Take a look at
the main content types and the extent to which each was promoted:
Split of Content

8. Evidently, marketers are embracing visual content as you can see from
the minute share of text-only content. But it is important to consider
whether photos are the most effective in bringing in engagement.
The chart below shows the engagement that each content type received
and how much it owed to paid efforts:
INTERACTIONS PER POST BY CONTENT TYPE
Organic
Promoted
Organic
Promoted
SPLIT OF CONTENT

9. ENGAGEMENT PER POST TYPE
GIFs got the most number of interactions (as a sum of Likes, Comments
and Shares) per Post. However, the brands studied here posted very few
GIFs compared to other content types (look at the previous chart for
reference). Marketers were aware that GIFs get them a lot of engagement,
as they supported a sizeable portion of them with paid efforts. This trend
was the same on Twitter as well:
On Instagram, photos got the brands more engagement than videos. While
the average photo brought in 428 Likes and Comments, a typical video got
only 142 interactions.

10. Carling received the most
number of Likes on their Post
congratulating Kaizer Chiefs
on winning the Carling Black
Label Cup. The massive
number of Reactions it
received owed to paid efforts
as well.
Top Posts
Most Reactions: Carling Black Label
Most Comments: MTN
51K
591 Shares
1.2K Comments
Congratulations to Coach Philani on leading Kaizer
Chiefs to their 2nd #CarlingChampionCup. A well
deserved victory!
Carling Black Label
July 30, 2016
MTN got the most number of
Comments in the group by
engaging their audience in a
contest. Usually Posts like
these prompt social media
audiences to Comments with
the promise of a gift or
giveaway. MTN boosted the
Reach of this Post by
promoting it, thereby ensuring
greater participation.
638K Views
22K
385 Shares
13K Comments
Which oldie do you prefer:
A) Nokia 3310 or
B) Siemens C45
Drop us a COMMENT below. #TheGreatDebate
MTN South Africa
April 6, 2016

11. Pick n Pay surprised shoppers
during the Christmas season
by footing the bill for some of
their loyal customers’ holiday
shopping. This earned them
the most Shares for a single
Post. The Post also had an
estimated Reach of over 2
million. Along with promotion,
the large number of Shares
made the post get on more
Newsfeeds.
The brands studied here published 327 campaigns in all during the year
2016. Take a look at the engagement that the top 10 campaigns received:
CAMPAIGNS – ENGAGEMENT
Most Shares: Pick n Pay
638K Views
19K
4,875 Shares
2.2K Comments
We wanted to give back to some of our valued
shoppers - see what happened when we surprised
them with festive cheer! #PnPKeepsOnGiving
Pick n Pay
December 21, 2016
Campaigns
Shares per Post
Comments per post
Likes per Post

12. Four of the top 10 campaigns were by Mr Price - #WomanCrushWednesday,
#MothersDay, #MRPxEverydayPeopleStories and #MRPmystyle. 67% of all
the Posts that were part of these four campaigns were promoted. The other
major reason for such splendid engagement is the interactive bent of their
Posts. Most of these invited social media audiences to participate. In both
#MRPxEverydayPeople Stories and #MRPmystyle, the brand asked Fans to
send them a picture of their #OOTD. Similarly, for the Mother’s Day
campaign they got Fans to tag their mothers in the Post and post a
comment with their plans for the day on it.
Customer Service
RESPONSE RATE % (REPLIES/MENTIONS)
100
80
60
40
20
0
2K 4K 6K 8K 10K
Around the world, customers are turning to Twitter to get support from
brands. According to one study, 72% of these customers expect the brand
to reply to them within one hour. For brands in South Africa on Twitter, even
though 23 of the 50 brands responded to a total of 195,000 tweets, the
average response time is more than 6 hours, sixteen times longer than
what most customers expect.
ABSA
Nedbank
Vodacom
MTNza
FlySA
Cell C

13. Absa and Vodacom are standout brands in terms of customer service.
ABSA responds to over 83% of @-mentions that it receives while MTNza
replied to over 69,000 tweets - more than any other brand in South
Africa. However, it’s MTNza’s competitor, Vodacom, that is quickest to
apologize in its customer service tweets with over 2,900 tweets.
On Facebook, the brands received on average 4,718 user Posts.
Vodacom got the most, a staggering 31,062 while Netcare saw only 19.
Brands typically respond to over 50% of user Posts. Cell C was most
responsive, with a response rate of 84%, while Media 24 was least
responsive (2%). Absa kept up its Twitter customer service track record
with a response rate of 81%.
The brands studied here used social media in varied ways. Each brand
behaves differently on social media depending on their social media
objectives. There is no way to arrive at an optimum posting frequency, for
instance, without considering how it serves the social media goals brands
set for themselves. Social media performance, in that sense, is relative.
Yet, it is essential that brands constantly evaluate how their Posts are
doing with respect to their goals and benchmark it against their
competitors and aspirational brands.
For data-driven insights get a demo of Unmetric or
reach out to us at team@unmetric.com