Women's Month Case study

Who 'run the world' in SA's #WomensMonth social media coverage?

Meltwater has been monitoring the #WomensMonth conversations on social media in South Africa to see if girls truly 'run the world' in a month dedicated to them.
Image credit: Omar Lopez on Unsplash.
Image credit: Omar Lopez on Unsplash.

Social media has been abuzz with #GirlPower – from popular South African singer Lira becoming the first African woman to have a Barbie doll created in her image, to competitions, campaigns and calls to action countrywide.

Persuasion can(’t) build a nation

Former National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete recently shared how she thinks “South Africa has proved that it is not ready psychologically” for a female president. During a radio talk with SAfm, Mbete said she thinks that women are capable of leading but aren’t considered the type to lead.

This created an influx of themes in which ‘South Africa’, ‘former National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete’, ‘national women’ and ‘female president’ were trending on Twitter.

While the first day of the month saw a natural surge of social media buzz around #WomensMonth, what Mbete shared in her radio talk significantly increased the online conversations around Women’s Day with a 1.15 million social reach.

While this number dropped the following day, there is still a steady online presence around what Mbete said.

Disrespect us no they won't

With Women’s Month, come some exciting award ceremonies geared at acknowledging women who empower and lead within their respective industries, the recent Fabulous Women Awards, held in Cape Town, recognised both women and girls during its seventh annual award ceremony.

While traction around the event only reached just over 40,000 on Twitter, the numbers drastically changed when social reach peaked over 500, 000 across both Twitter and Facebook.

The following day saw Inspiring50 announce its winners online, which not only garnered positive commentary on Twitter for the women who were winners, but had a social reach of almost half a million on both Twitter and Facebook. As the awards ceremony happened, there was consistency in the Inspiring50 celebratory comments, with more people joining in on Facebook.

We're just halfway through the month, so there will certainly be plenty more conversations about how South African women are running the world.
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