Nairobi is the most active city on Twitter in East Africa with 123,078 geo-located tweets in a period of three months going back to December 2013 and the sixth most active city in Africa, according to a recent study titled, How Africa Tweets by UK communications firm Portland.

TOP FIVE CITIES

Johannesburg took the top spot as the most active tweeting city in Africa with 344,215 geo-located tweets followed by Ekurhuleni (264,172), Cairo (227,509), Durban (163,019) and Alexandria (159,534).

KENYANS EMBRACE TECHNOLOGY

The results of the Portland study will come as no surprise to most Kenyans who have embraced the new technology with the majority also being active across the social media platform.

#THE HASHTAGS

The study showed that the most active hashtags in Nairobi were #KenyaAt50 and #SickAt50 which was health strike related. Other commonly used hashtags include #NairobiSC and #Jobs, and TV programs were also popular in Kenya with the likes of MTVStars and Tusker Project Fame 6.

#BACKLASH#

Just to show how active Kenyans are on Twitter, they were able to force media giants CNN to apologise for sensational reporting back in the year 2012. Using the hashtag #someonetellCNN, Kenyans criticized the global network to an extent that it became a global trend. Botswana and Nigeria also faced the wrath of Kenyan tweets forcing them into submission with using the hashtags #someonetellBotswana and #someonetellNigeria respectively.

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

The survey also showed that companies have taken to Twitter to engage directly with their customers and also update them about their products and brands. They also use hashtags related to competitions or auctions.

Twitter has indeed changed the way Kenyans and Africa as a whole communicate to each other and it’s only going to get better with the rapid improvement in technology and more Kenyans being absorbed by the wave of social media communication.