ANCYL gets South Africa tweeting

If the tweets and status updates about the ANC Youth League's disciplinary hearing on Tuesday were advertising space, they would be worth R2-million.

This is according to BrandsEye, an online reputation management service, which monitored the mentions regarding the ANCYL and its president, Julius Malema, on Tuesday.

The mentions - through Twitter, Facebook and news sites - numbered 6 286. More than 5 011 people took part in the conversation, reaching an estimated 8.4 million people.

“Had that conversation been purchased in advertising, it would have cost the country R1 945 867,” BrandsEye said in a media release.

The disciplinary hearing and the protest violence surrounding it earned a lot more attention than the state of the nation address and the budget speech earlier this year, which managed 3 352 and 812 mentions each, respectively.

Some 94% of the mentions pertained to Malema himself. Of the mentions, 9% were supportive of the ANCYL, while 30% were against and 61% neutral.

And with the internet transcending borders, BrandsEye warned against South Africans being overtly negative about the country online.

Said BrandsEye: "We need to be mindful of what we’re putting out to the world. South Africa can’t afford to have nearly R2-million worth of particularly negative coverage."

And with an estimated 9.6 million South Africans having internet access either through a computer or cellphone, according to the Digital Media and Marketing Association, online penetration is slowly becoming a microcosm of what people in the country are saying.

BrandsEye added: "As internet penetration rates improve, tracking what South Africans have to say about current events like what happened yesterday at Luthuli House will become more and more representative of the entire South African population’s opinions thereof."