As Africa celebrates World Social Media Day

June 30 is, annually, commemorated as the World Social Media Day. This day brings to the fore the realities of a growing global community of diverse individuals who are wirelessly wired.

The Social Media Day was launched by an organisation called Mashable, a digital technology company, in 2010 to recognise and celebrate social media’s impact on global communication. While every day is essentially a social media day, today marks the sixth celebration.

Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, BBM, Instagram and a host of other social networking platforms are a next to none work or playground for both tech-savvy and non-tech-savvy individuals across the world to explore their lives.

Daily, these networking platforms record a high number of new users, thereby keeping the social media space ever busy with restive timelines.

For sure, the impact of social media, though a relatively — growing space when we focus on the African continent, cannot, and should not be undermined. Social media are growing with Africa and vice-versa.

With over 110 million active social media subscribers and 300 million active Internet users, social media are literally influencing every facet of Africa’s livelihood. This is most notable in ecommerce, online entertainment and civic engagements. They complement the traditional media, thereby forming an outstanding convergence.

The continent also boasts over 700 million mobile phones. Little wonder Africa is referred to as the mobile continent.

For the many benefits enjoyed thus far by the people — and the envisaged ones — the Social Media Africa Initiative is hosting a continent-wide virtual event to, among others, venerate the 2015 Social Media Day from an African perspective.

The African-wide virtual event is billed for today, as an all-day TweetMeet event, to deliberate on issues ranging from social media appreciation, the African reality, e-commerce, entertainment and fashion, governance and leadership, banking, among others. The event will also feature interesting meet-up sessions and other fantastic moments.

The TweetMeet is segmented into seven sessions, with each running for an average of two hours. Each session will be moderated by a proficient social media personality while having at least two competent individuals as guests to examine each subject. Questions, interventions and other engagements will not be exclusive to the moderator as members of the public are expected to contribute.

During the TweetMeet, Africa’s best from across the online and offline will engage diverse issues of interest.

The growing reality of social media in Africa leaves the continent with no option but to join the global celebration to evaluate the impact of ever-changing communication while looking forward to harnessing the dividends of the process for the benefit of Africa.

For individuals and organisations that have embraced digital technology and social media, they can join in the global celebration from any part of the world.

First, you can join the global trend via the hashtag #SMDay as well as the Africa hashtag – #SMDayAfrica.

Many leading social media organisations like Mashable and Social Media Africa Initiative have free ‘toolkits’ for individuals and organisations to download and use before and during the celebration.

Another key component of the celebration is a promotional campaign by individuals and organisations through their social media accounts and blogs. By doing this, you will be recognised as an authority in the social media space.

Thirdly, you can take and share pictures of yourself and your team members carrying posters with inscriptions such as happy Social Media Day, Social Media Day Africa, We love social media, among other creative lines.

As Africa celebrates the 2015 Social Media Day, some pertinent issues come to mind, which both users and industry experts must make conscious efforts to address. Some of the challenges are digital illiteracy, cyber security and identity theft. The challenges confronting the African social media and, indeed, the cyberspace are enormously daunting.

It is, however, hoped that with the conscious efforts by policy makers, industry experts and social media influencers, some of the challenges will be addressed. Addressing them is critical to unlocking the potential of social media and making them serve the need of the continent.

Happy Social Media Day!

Opera, Firefox, top browsers in Nigeria

With 55.57 per cent control of the market as of Monday, Opera is currently the highest patronised browser in Nigeria.

The browser started the year with 48.13 per cent market control, moved up to 52.94 per cent in May before it experienced a spark that pushed it to above 55 per cent on Monday.

The information is sourced from StatCounter, an online Internet resource organisation. Every day, the online platform tracks Internet activities in different parts of the world,        rating performances and dynamics on certain parameters.

Opera’s performance is an average of the figures it polls from four major Internet browsing platforms – desktop, tablet, mobile and console – captured by the researcher.

The figure is driven by the patronage it receives from mobile Internet subscribers, where it garnered 68.81 per cent on Monday to maintain its clear lead in the category. Even with its dominance, the charts point upward.

Opera is distantly followed by Google Chrome, which polled 12.91 per cent across various computer and mobile devices to become the second highest performing browser in the country.

With 48.84 per cent of desktop browsing activities in Nigeria conducted via Chrome, it took over from Mozilla Firefox to become the most popular browser among Internet subscribers who use computers. Its six-month average is 37.86 per cent.

Firefox, which started the year with 4.92 per cent, dropped to 35.97 per cent on Monday to settle for the second position. With 40.92 per cent, its six-month average is still the highest in the desktop category.

Across different platforms, Firefox and UCWeb Browser trail behind Chrome as the third most used browser in the country. They are competing for the third position. Both browsers control slightly above eight per cent of the Internet market each.

According to the statistics, Internet Explorer has continued to struggle, losing the market it once dominated to newer brands.

Across all platforms, Internet Explorer’s six-month average is 3.14 per cent. The overall performance is boosted by its 14.85 per cent six-month average on desktop. This indicates that it could lose more market share as more subscribers migrate to mobile platforms. This has been the trend in recent times.

Internet Explorer mobile device browser has been patronised by 1.39 per cent of the market in the past six months, on the average.

As soon as Microsoft replaced Internet Explorer with Windows series, the Internet market influencers pronounced the search engine dead. Reports say subscribers have continued to migrate to more-secure browsers.

Google, a global leader in searches, has continued to lead that area of the Internet. In Nigeria, it has sustained its leadership with 90.92 per cent six-month average in search engine performance analysis.

Google is followed by Bing’s 4.76 per cent, Yahoo’s 2.72 per cent as second and third top-performing SEs respectively. Ask Jeeves, WebCrawler and other new entrants trail behind.

Android is also the leading operating system, commanding 31.81 per cent of the market on the average in the past six months. This statistic cuts across different platforms – desktop and mobile devices.

It is followed by Series 40, with 18.43 per cent; and Window 7, which commands 11.63 per cent.

Blackberry’s market in Nigeria has shrunk to 5.05 per cent on the average in the past six months. With 3.01 per cent, Windows 8.1 is struggling to gain a space in the local market.

At the global level, however, statistics show that Chrome is the most-preferred browser. Its last six-month average is 43.53 per cent as against Safari’s 13. 52 per cent.

Internet Explorer and Firefox are third and fourth respectively. They are followed by UCWeb, Opera and IEMobile.