Heightened interest in news around the recent general elections seems to have boosted the fortunes of a number of South African news organisations on Twitter. The SA Twitter News Ranking for May 2009 shows healthy growth for MyNews24 with the addition of 697 new followers and nearly a doubling of followers for TheTimes thanks to its successful elections news site and Twitter feed. All the sites in the Index grew their subscriber numbers and both News24 and the Daily Dispatch jumped four positions on their rivals. ITWeb joined Twitter as well and should see steady growth if it puts some effort into promoting its Twitter feed on its landing page. The SABC hasn’t updated its feed since March but remain on the index in an effort to shame them back into action. Is there place for an Afrikaans news feed on Twitter? Rapport still doesn’t seem to think so. Personally Mark suspects there is – who will grab the niche?
[TABLE=8]
See April 2009 data update. See March 2009 data update. See February 2009 data update. See January 2009 data update. See December 2008 data update. Follow MarkLives on Twitter @marklives or on the @CABNetwork
If you find other news organisations online let me know so I can add them to the list. (Stats as of May 5, 2009)
UPDATE MAY 7: We seem to have a data error regarding the number of followers and updates for The Sowetan. We will provide the correct information with our next update. Figures as of May 7, 2009:
Followers: 157 Updates: 569. Correct number of Upadates on May 5th (calculated backwards): 540
Similar Posts:
- Local media channels see healthy Twitter growth
- MyNews24 shows how media can use Twitter
- SA Newspapers sees growth in followers on Twitter
Popularity: 1% [?]
One Comment
The stats for Sowetan don’t look right. On May 7 they have 197 followers and 569 updates.