Social media participation around Thursday evening’s state of the nation address by President Jacob Zuma was 35% higher than 2015’s speech, with 345 964 on-topic conversations on the day.

This is according to research by youKnow Digital, a social media marketing consultancy.

YouKnow Digital said the 35% growth figure is “considerable” given general conversation growth on South African social media in the past year of just 4,9%.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the conversation took place during the speech. Thereafter it dropped off sharply, in part because of the time and in part due to lack of tangible discussion points for the social media community, youKnow Digital said.

Leading up to to the speech (between 6pm and 7pm), the majority of the conversation focused on Economic Freedom Fighters MPs who were singing while entering parliament.

Between 7pm and 8pm, the single biggest conversation topic was “point of order”, which gained widespread interest (and even enjoyment) as the EFF and the Congress of the People disrupted the sitting.

By 8pm, the conversation focus changed “Project Hydrate” (which the president commended). By 10pm, the conversation had all but died out.

The biggest topic of interest from the speech for the social media community was the drought on 25% (dominated by comments on government’s inaction), followed by racism and the one capital city discussion, both on 23%.

“What’s most interesting is that while Twitter growth in South Africa has been fairly flat, we’re still seeing significant year-on-year growth in Sona conversation — a possible indication of increasing political awareness and involvement,” said youKnow Digital MD Kelvin Jonck.