Study ranks Nigeria’s most active churches on social media

The 2013 Social Media Report said RCCG beat the Daystar Christian Centre and the Elevation Church to become the leading religious organisation in Nigeria that is “effectively” using social media to reach its audience.

The church’s general overseer Pastor Enoch Adeboye has almost two million followers on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+, thus becoming Nigeria’s religious leader with the highest number of followers on social media.

Senior pastor of Daystar Christian Centre, Rev. Sam Adeyemi, and the presiding bishop at the Living Faith Church, David Oyedepo, came second and third respectively.

The report said the rankings were based on a public poll and judgment of a team of experts who assessed brands, organisations and individuals who are using social media effectively in Nigeria.

1,378 tech-savvy individuals drawn from different parts of the country submitted nominations, including Google communications and public affairs manager for Anglophone West Africa Taiwo Kolade-Ogunlade, business lead and chief of staff to Facebook’s vice president of global marketing solutions Morin Oluwole and ICT development consultant Gbenga Sesan.

Founder and principal of Alder Consulting Leke Alder in his foreword said the report was released to encourage the use of social media for public good.

“I believe in social media. It is the armament of the week against the powerful. It is the leveler of the society and the arbitrator of justice. Lives are being transformed right under our nostrils; nations are undergoing transfiguration. Governments have been toppled; tyrants sent to gallows, autocrats become denizens of the dungeon – courtesy of the social media,” he said.

“It is a veritable campaign network against corporate malfeasance and other cousins of corruption. It is powerful, interesting, evocative and compelling in a literal sense. It has evolved a new language of communication and a new human network.”

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