Topics that ruled SA social media in 2015
Social media’s biggest platforms have revealed which topics ruled the South African social landscape in 2015.
The year saw a number of big topics blow up in the country, from student protests across the nation, to our controversial president who never failed to spark outcry every time he showed up on timelines.
Add to this the much-loathed load shedding which hit the country hard in the first half of the year, and the Rugby World Cup which dominated discussions in the latter half – it’s clear there was a lot to talk about in 2015.
Looking at the top Twitter trends for South Africa in 2015, it comes as no surprise that the #FeesMustFall campaign lead by South African students took top spot in the country.
Related to the student protests was the #NationalShutdown tag, which spread as the protests hit all regions of the country.
Also among the top five Twitter trends for South Africa was the #AskMmusi tag, which opened the new DA leader Mmusi Maimane to questions from the public. The QnA was soon co-opted by the politician’s detractors, and was shut down early.
Here are the top 5 topics trending on Twitter in SA in 2015:
Student protests
- Fees Must Fall – #FeesMustFall
- SONA2015 – #SONA2015
- National Shutdown – #NationalShutdown
- Ask Mmusi – #AskMmusi
- Loadshedding – #Loadshedding
Most popular topics on Facebook in South Africa
Jacob Zuma
- Jacob Zuma
- Rugby world cup
- Eskom electricity crisis
- Mayweather and Pacquiao boxing fight
- Nkandla scandal
- Terror attacks in Paris
- The US presidential election
- The cricket world cup
- Comedian Trevor Noah
- Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane
Globally, the US presidential election and the November 13 attacks in Paris were the world’s two top trending topics for the year.
Other major trending topics included the Syrian civil war and refugee crisis, the Nepal earthquakes, and the Greek debt crisis.
While Instagram has not released any information about the most popular tags in South Africa for 2015, it did announce that for the third year running, #love was the most used tag on social image sharing site across the globe.
Instagram love
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