• Log in
  • Sign up
  •  
  • About
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Rainmakers
  • 88mph Garage Nairobi
 
HumanIPOHome to African Tech
    
  • News
  • Activity
  • Startups
  • People

Follow African Tech scene

You have successfully subscribed!

Notify me!

Featured news

Guest post: Africa, Entertainment & the Digital RevolutionWAPA urges ICASA to implement lite-licensing

In partnership with:

Most read

  • Is RB Jacobs, the FNB Guy, a ‘twitterbot’ or the real thing?

    December 10, 2012

  • Tanzania’s mobile money transfers hit US$654 million

    December 11, 2012

  • WaveTek Nigeria to improve broadband coverage in Africa with Carlson wireless agreement

    December 10, 2012

  • Cyber security features heavily at ITU World Telecom 2012 forum

    December 13, 2012

  • Kenyans win first and second prize in Vodafone’s first App Star Challenge

    December 13, 2012

  • Avaya equips Kenya ICT Board offices

    December 11, 2012

Latest by country

Kenya

  • CCK monitoring of Internet and mobile usage unlawful, says lawyer

    December 14, 2012

  • Just who owns M-Shwari? Safaricom blunders raise more questions

    December 14, 2012

South Africa

  • NATIVE’s Angus Robinson on the trends of 2012 and what to expect in 2013

    December 14, 2012

  • Digital migration will cut prices and boost choice, ICASA

    December 14, 2012

Nigeria

  • MTN Nigeria set to invest $1.3 billion in infrastructure upgrade and expansion

    December 14, 2012

  • NCC approves new guideline for disconnection of indebted telecoms operators

    December 14, 2012

Follow us!

HumanIPO Twitter feed

Follow entrepreneurs, investors and tech enthusiasts!

Join today!

Latest by category

Startups

  • Q&A: Chike Maduegbuna talks about Afrinolly App

    December 14, 2012

  • Naspers’ price checking site officially launched in Nigeria

    December 14, 2012

Mobile

  • CCK monitoring of Internet and mobile usage unlawful, says lawyer

    December 14, 2012

  • Opera Apps Store announces best apps 2012

    December 14, 2012

Internet

  • Google tightens search controls to filter out pornographic images

    December 14, 2012

  • Health and education quality raised by tech, report says

    December 14, 2012

Telecoms

  • CCK monitoring of Internet and mobile usage unlawful, says lawyer

    December 14, 2012

  • MTN Nigeria set to invest $1.3 billion in infrastructure upgrade and expansion

    December 14, 2012

Features

  • The HumanIPO Debate: Should South African e-tolling go ahead?

    December 14, 2012

  • Technology v poachers in SA’s national parks

    December 14, 2012

Social Media

  • Google Maps shoots to the top of Apple's App Store

    December 14, 2012

  • Facebook looks to reassure users with privacy changes

    December 13, 2012

Gadgets

  • Nigerian Society Of Engineers pioneer online real time voting

    December 14, 2012

  • Visa builds groundwork for electronic financial services in Rwanda

    December 14, 2012

November 22, 2012 · by Robin Okuthe

How Kenya’s politicians can manipulate Facebook, Twitter to win elections

Share Tweet

Credit: Archive.hizb-australia.org

Just about all presidential aspirants in Kenya have embraced social media, ahead of the 2013 elections. Social media can enable targeting ads and pushing messages to the right voters at the right time, with targeted advertising an immensely influential tool that can accumulate followers organically while actively engaging them.

 


In this article, we look at the advertising potential offered by Facebook and Twitter, two of the most used social networking sites in Kenya.

Facebook
Current statistics show Kenya has more than 1.9 million active Facebook users, some 5 percent of the country’s population and nearly 48 percent of the country’s Internet users --positioning the nation at 66th in the world ranking of the site’s top users by country.

Facebook flaunts a self-serve ad platform that allows advertisers to target people based on aspects including interest, age or religion. It makes it easy to narrow down the audience to those inclined to be more receptive to the messages.

The profile, however, remains anonymous, with any protected or private info invisible, so that the politician can only see the estimated number of users reached. Facebook suggests targeting groups of not less than 1,000 users, that could require expanding targeting criteria.

The social networking site also allows advertisers to target users based on interests they have included in profiles. In this case, a Kenyan politician could target users who are interested in politics. He could also tailor his target by political identification, for instance people who identify themselves with certain parties, such as PNU, ODM, TNA, ODM Kenya, POA or KNC, would be targeted by those parties.

Additional demographic information such as gender age or marital status are also be crucial aspects that can be applied to target users. By education targeting, people who have attained a certain level of learning can be targeted, or those from certain schools and colleges. Those who have graduated from certain schools in specific years also supply additional criteria for targeting.

Regional targeting has been the popular option in most of the political campaigns. For instance, within the United States, Facebook allows targeting by state, city or zip code. Recently, it added ethnic targeting option.

Politicians can take advantage of the site’s targeting facility to segment their audience into various groups from which they can distribute tailored ads. For instance, single women in Nairobi who identify as university graduates and have children will receive different messages from those sent to single non-college-educated women in Kisumu.

Twitter
Studies have showed that Twitter users tend to be more inclined towards politics. Further, the social networking site has proved to be more leaning towards political discourse than Facebook.

Head of Twitter’s political sales team Peter Greenberger once told Politico that promoted tweets have proved significantly more successful than the average brand’s promoted tweets.

”For corporate advertisers, between 1 percent and 3 percent of Twitter users will engage with a Promoted Tweet by clicking, retweeting, replying to or marking it as a favorite. But with political Promoted Tweets, that number is as high as 20 percent,” he said.

Twitter’s advertising is a newer territory – comparatively -- for brands, only recently has it started serving politicians. The site has limited demographic targeting compared to Facebook. However, politicians can target their ads based on region, search behaviour or device.

The site features three forms of advertising, namely tweets, promoted hashtags and promoted accounts, which the politician can subscribe to, to enable specific tweets to be visible within the Twitter users’ feeds or in search results for the keywords selected – even if the users do not follow him on Twitter.

The politician could probably wager on having the promoted tweets appear within the search results as it makes it easy for people to find his tweet relevant.

By promoting his account, the politician’s Twitter account becomes a follower suggestion for users who Twitter thinks may be interested in following him, as well those who search the keywords he selected. He can as well promote a hashtag to initiate a conversation on a subject of choice. However, it is most likely to miscarry, as it does not engage targeting.

Twitter also permits targeting by region, making it possible to serve promoted tweets to users in certain areas although the service is not as granular as Facebook’s zipcode targeting.

Twitter recently announcedit would be serving ads on mobile in addition to enabling targeting by device. This permits service of ads purposely to mobile devices, laptops, desktops. The politician can as well target by mobile device that serves ads specifically to Android or iOS devices.

While the politician using Twitter may lack Facebook’s rich demographic targeting, the benefits from behavioral targeting that has proved even more powerful. Twitter users who have made searches within the site are said to be in active search of information. This means a user is more likely to be engaged once the promoted tweet proves relevant.

Share Tweet

FB comments

Latest news

  • 1 day 10 hours ago

    Shanduka denies impropriety suggestions over MTN stake purchase

    Black Economic Empowerment Group Shanduka has refuted suggestions that its recent purchase of a stake in MTN Nigeria was inappropriate due (more)

  • 1 day 12 hours ago

    CCK monitoring of Internet and mobile usage unlawful, says lawyer

    A Nairobi lawyer has said plans by industry regulator the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) to monitor SMS text messages and assign (more)

  • 1 day 12 hours ago

    Google tightens search controls to filter out pornographic images

    Google has altered the algorithms for its image search, making it more difficult for people to find pornographic sites unless they are (more)

  • 1 day 12 hours ago

    MTN Nigeria set to invest $1.3 billion in infrastructure upgrade and expansion

    MTN Nigeria, the country’s biggest operator, has announced its readiness to invest more in its operations in Nigeria, with officials (more)

  • 1 day 13 hours ago

    NCC approves new guideline for disconnection of indebted telecoms operators

    The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has approved new guidelines on Procedure for Granting of Approval to Disconnect (more)

  • 1 day 13 hours ago

    NATIVE’s Angus Robinson on the trends of 2012 and what to expect in 2013

    2012 saw several long-running news stories and trends in mobile technology that will affect how things pan out in 2013, and South African (more)

  • 1 day 13 hours ago

    Digital migration will cut prices and boost choice, ICASA

    The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) says the switch to digital broadcasting will bring down prices and (more)

  • image
    1 day 14 hours ago

    Nigerian Society Of Engineers pioneer online real time voting

    To ensure elections in Nigeria are worry-free, the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) has developed an online real-time election system.

  • image
    1 day 14 hours ago

    The HumanIPO Debate: Should South African e-tolling go ahead?

    The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) may have just won the court case threatening to scupper the Government’s e-tolling (more)

  • image
    1 day 14 hours ago

    Visa builds groundwork for electronic financial services in Rwanda

    Global payments solutions leader Visa has agreed to lay foundations for an electronic payment network in line with the 2011 Charter of (more)

  • image
    1 day 14 hours ago

    Child benefits from 3D-printable arms

    HumanIPO recently reported on an American company that was set to begin testing prototypes of the first 3D-printable gun, assuming it (more)

  • 1 day 15 hours ago

    Health and education quality raised by tech, report says

    Market report search engine ReportLinker has released latest findings highlighting the gains made by governments by embracing e-education (more)

  • image
    1 day 15 hours ago

    Technology v poachers in SA’s national parks

    South African National Parks (SANParks) has launched aerial thermal imaging technologies in a bid to combat poaching in the Kruger National (more)

  • image
    1 day 15 hours ago

    Q&A: Chike Maduegbuna talks about Afrinolly App

    With Afrinolly App, millions of Nigerians now watch trailers of movies produced in the African movie markets, especially Nollywood. They (more)

  • 1 day 15 hours ago

    Telkom SA appoints new independent non-executive directors

    Telkom South Africa have appointed five new independent non-executive directors to the board of directors with immediate effect as it moves (more)

  • 1 day 16 hours ago

    Nigeria loses billions of dollars to foreign technologies

    The inability of Nigerian technology companies to locally produce indigenous technology is costing the nation to lose around N500 billion (more)

  • image
    1 day 16 hours ago

    South African ID books to be replaced by Smart Cards

    South African Home Affairs Minister Naledi Pandor has announced the green, bar-coded identification books will be replaced by smart ID (more)

  • 1 day 17 hours ago

    Opera Apps Store announces best apps 2012

    Opera Mobile Store, the world’s fifth largest mobile app store, has announced the 2012 Top Awards winners, following user nomination of (more)

  • 1 day 17 hours ago

    Outa promises the fight is not over in South African e-tolling battle

    Yesterday’s judgement by Judge Louis Vorster has been described as a “very sad day” for South Africa’s democracy by the Opposition (more)

  • 1 day 17 hours ago

    MTN Uganda acquitted of tax evasion charges

    A tax evasion case filed against MTN Uganda’s senior management and its board of directors has been declared “null and void” and (more)

  • image
    1 day 18 hours ago

    Naspers’ price checking site officially launched in Nigeria

    Naspers, a South Africa-based multinational electronic media company, has launched a consumer focused website dubbed PriceCheck Nigeria to (more)

  • image
    1 day 18 hours ago

    Gust Pay introduces its iPad based point of sale solution

    Gust Pay, the South African mobile payments startup, has introduced a new iPad-based point of sale (POS) solution for restaurants and (more)

  • image
    1 day 18 hours ago

    Guest post: Africa, Entertainment & the Digital Revolution

    In an exclusive article for HumanIPO, Jean-Michel Koenig, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at global media and entertainment company (more)

  • 1 day 18 hours ago

    MobileMedia wins patent violation case against Apple

    A US court has ruled that Apple’s iPhone violated three patents held by licensing firm MobileMedia Ideas, which is part-owned by Nokia (more)

  • image
    1 day 18 hours ago

    New data-stealing malware puts credit card use at risk

    A new type of custom-made malware, installed remotely to steal credit card information directly from point-of-sale (PoS) terminals at (more)

  • 1 day 19 hours ago

    Just who owns M-Shwari? Safaricom blunders raise more questions

    The M-Shwari ownership issue has thickened after Safaricom sent two contradictory press releases on who owns the product yesterday.

  • 1 day 19 hours ago

    Symantec launches Digital Information Index in Nigeria

    Global software giant Symantec has introduced its Digital Information Index (DII) into the Nigerian market, to protect business information (more)

  • 1 day 19 hours ago

    US walks out of telecommunications treaty

    The United States has led a group of nations in walking out of World Conference on International Telecommunications and refusing to sign an (more)

  • image
    1 day 20 hours ago

    New security dongle now available in Kenya

    An Internet security solution that protects PCs through new dongle gadget Soft Lock eSign is now available in Kenya.

  • 1 day 20 hours ago

    tfsRadio Nigeria app reveals software update for 2013

    The developer of tfsRadio Nigeria has told HumanIPO users of the app will enjoy a software update next year which will include genre (more)

  • image
    1 day 20 hours ago

    Google Maps shoots to the top of Apple's App Store

    iPhone users have responded to the return of Google Maps to their devices by sending the application to the top of the charts in Apple’s (more)

  • 1 day 21 hours ago

    FansConnectOnline set to launch Afrinolly app on iOS, Windows and tablets

    Video and music application Afrinolly will be launched on phones running iOS and Windows as well as tablets in 2013, as it looks to build (more)

  • 2 days ago

    WAPA urges ICASA to implement lite-licensing

    The Wireless Access Providers’ Association (WAPA) wants the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to follow in the (more)

  • image
    2 days ago

    Facebook looks to reassure users with privacy changes

    Facebook has announced changes to its privacy controls, to become effective by the end of the year, in a bid to reassure users of their (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Nigerian telecoms companies lose US$2 million an hour to downtime

    Nigerian operators are losing US$2 million an hour because downtime, according to a study carried out by global hardware and software (more)

  • 2 days ago

    ITU delegates defy US, Europe to vote for “active” Internet role

    Delegates at the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) yesterday (more)

  • image
    2 days ago

    Q&A: HealthQ Technologies co-founder Dr Riaan Conradie

    Technology and health experts have been flocking to read all about the world’s first open-source metabolic chamber launched in (more)

  • 2 days ago

    South African telecom industry outlook: what to look forward to

    Mobile apps, mobile ads and cloud services will drive the technology and telecommunications industry in South Africa, says a report by (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Telecom regulators urge for oversight in industry policies

    Telecommunication regulators in Africa have declared there is need for more oversight in regulations as investors inject huge funds towards (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Airtel completes 4G LTE trial in Nigeria

    Airtel Nigeria has announced the successful completion of a Long Term Evolution (LTE) trial in Lagos, saying it is ready to test in other (more)

  • 2 days ago

    NASA admits case of mistaken identity over Mount Everest

    NASA has admitted that a photograph on its website claiming to show Mount Everest as visible from the International Space Station wrongly (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Duncan Greaves appointed Chief Executive of South Africa’s TENET

    The Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET) has confirmed the appointment of Duncan Greaves as Chief Executive (more)

  • image
    2 days ago

    Increase user-time on your site through clickable videos

    In blogging and online marketing, engagement is key, but with hundreds of websites for visitors to choose from, arduous work in achieving (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Safaricom sued by Faulu Kenya over M-Shwari

    Barely one month after launching its M-Shwari service, Safaricom has been taken to court by microfinance company Faulu Kenya for allegedly (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Cyber security features heavily at ITU World Telecom 2012 forum

    Problems posed by cyber security have been near the top of the agenda at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) conference in (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Online shopping trends in South Africa’s festive season

    A survey conducted by online research specialists Columinate has revealed security issues remain the primary concern for people doing their (more)

  • 2 days ago

    HP Indigo 5600 offset printing press launched in Lagos

    The latest offset printing press produced by Hewlett Packard (HP), HP Indigo 5600, has been launched in Nigeria, expanding into the plastic (more)

  • 2 days ago

    Airtel joins Alcatel-Lucent to help meet mobile broadband demand in Africa

    Alcatel-Lucent, a mobile, internet protocol (IP) and optics technologies company, is set to partner with communications giant Bharti Airtel (more)

  • image
    2 days ago

    iPhone and iPod Touch get Google Maps

    Google have made Google Maps available for the Apple iPhone after the embarrassment of Apple Maps.

  • 2 days ago

    McAfee returns to United States

    Fugitive software tycoon John McAfee, who was arrested in Guatemala after fleeing a murder investigation in Belize, has been deported back (more)

  •  Like us on Facebook
  •  Follow on Twitter
  •  Youtube
  • News
  • Startups
  • People
  • News RSS
  • About
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Rainmaker
  • 88mph Garage Nairobi
  • In press
  • Logo & brand
  • Feedback
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy