Talk of coalitions has social networks abuzz shortly after the local government elections, according to an online media monitoring company.
Statistics from international online media monitoring company Meltwater suggest that the word “coalitions” is dominating discussions among South Africans on social media.
Marketing manager at Meltwater Wesley Matthew said that research shortly after last week’s election showed the Democratic Alliance, ANC and Economic Freedom Fighters as the top trending parties on social networks since the end of the election.
“After the elections, the word ‘coalition’ has been mentioned in conversations spanning all three parties,” Matthew said.
In the lead up to the 3 August elections, the SABC was at the forefront of censorship allegations, dominating both local and global social media conversations.
Meltwater tracked local election mentions this month across social platforms as well as over 270 000 media sources worldwide.
Meanwhile, over half-a-million South African voters made use of Facebook’s “I’m a voter” button, which allowed users to show their friends that they were voting.
The social network said that past studies found that voters who see more of their Facebook friends talking about voting were more likely to vote themselves.
The “I’m a voter” button that appeared on users’ Facebook news feeds — particularly for those eligible to vote — reached 4,7m people and 553 261 shared that they’d voted. Sine 8,9m impressions and 987 616 primary actions were linked to this activity as well.
Following the elections, voters also took to Instagram to share their inked thumbs using the hashtag #myvote.
