Facebook and Twitter in Nigeria

Are you on twitter or facebook? The answer to this question varies base on age, exposure or the profession of the person been asked. In Nigeria, facebook and twitter is fast becoming a trend especially among the teeming youths but the rate of its awareness and usage is very poor when compared to that of other African countries. According to the analysis carried out by Social Bakers, there are about 4​244​100 facebook users in Nigeria which puts Nigeria at 35th position in the ranking of countries with the highest number of users behind Egypt and South Africa which are smaller country with far smaller populations. With this figure only 2.79% of Nigerians are on facebook and only 9.65% of its online population are on facebook.

When it comes to twitter the patronage is worse. Statistics from Portland Notes shows that Nigeria (1,646,212 tweets) is far behind South Africa (5,030,226 tweets) and Kenya (2,476,800 tweets) as the next most active country during the 4th Quarter of 2011. This poor patronage can be blamed on high computer illiteracy, poor infrastructures and low social media awareness. Despite these fact facebook and twitter was very evident in the fuel subsidy struggle between the Nigerian people and the Nigerian Government. They were used to mobilize demonstrators and speedily spread facts exposing government's shady deals.

Nigerians are more into facebook than twitter and almost all twitter users are facebook users. Majority of people that are into social media do not know how to use twitter though they may have been facebook users for a long time. Facebook users may not like twitter at the onset but when they start using it with time they become so addicted that they stop or reduces their usage of facebook. Many twitter users complain that facebook is boring and annoying. This may be because of facebook's numerous unwanted newsfeeds generated from every single activity that friends or business associates perform, unwanted picture tags e.t.c

Majority of facebook user in Nigeria are within the range of 18 – 35 years of age while twitter has younger users of 18 – 29 years of age. Social media users in Nigeria are mainly university students, followed by small business outfits, people in the entertainment industry and the media. The government or the politicians have little or no presence in the social media world. Twitter is becoming an important source of information in Nigeria. Most users uses twitter to monitor news and job seekers use it to search for employment opportunities. With less than 3% of Nigerians using social media and with a lot of people now owing Smartphones Nigeria is one of the world's largest potential social media communities.