Free vs Paid Twitter app use in Kenya.
According to Twitter, the most widely used third-party Twitter apps globally include Tweetbot, Hootsuite, Echofon , UberSocial and Bubbletweet with their prices going up to US$9.99 per month for an array of options to manage both twitter and other social media accounts.
Closer home,a random sample of 3000 tweets tagged #Kenya, one of the most widely shared Twitter hash tags in Africa reveals that first party twitter apps are the most preferred clients despite the fact that there exists hundreds of twitter clients.
Twitter for android (26.4%),Twitter web client (14%),Twitter for iPhone (13%) and Twitter for Blackberry, iPad, Mac, Windows,Windows Phone and Tweetdeck accounting for 6.7% of all sampled tweets.
Third party twitter apps such as Hootsuite,Buffer,Plume and Fenix account for under 40% of the preferred twitter apps.
What are the most famous people and accounts #KOT using to create content on the interwebs?
A look into twitter’s most followed accounts reveals that Native Twitter applications are largely the preferred tweeting option with the president H.E Uhuru Kenyatta who’s following stands at 1.7 million using Twitter for Android and Twitter for iPad.The deputy president H.E William Ruto is purely an android guy while H.E Raila Odinga uses Twitter for iPhone.
Media Houses
Hootsuite and Tweetdeck are the preferred primary clients for most mainstream media houses with the exception of KBC and K24 who tweet via Twitter for Android. NTV, CITIZEN TV , The Star and the Nation Media Group primarily use Hootsuite while KTN, Daily Nation,Capital Fm,Business Daily Africa and Standard Kenya prefer to use Tweetdeck.
On the surface, Hootsuite and TweetDeck work in a similar way and have a similar appearance where you add side-by-side columns for streams, searches, lists, mentions and so on. As of April 2016 Tweetdeck,which was formally available for desktop and for other social media platforms is now a browser only,twitter only tool. With Hootsuite, on the other hand , you can manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+pages ,WordPress accounts as well as add integrations for YouTube, Instagram and SoundCloud.
Banks and other financial Institutions.
Hootsuite ,SproutSocial and Twitter Web Client are the most used tweeting platforms for most banks with Hootsuite being used by Chase Bank ,DTB and the Housing finance group.Cooperative ,Barclays and NIC use SproutSocial while Family, Faulu and Imperial banks use the Twitter Web Client .I&M , KCB, Equity and Standard Chartered use Conversocial ,Socialbakers, Oracle Engage and Sprinklr respectively.
ResolutionKE tweet via hootsuite while UAP and APA insurance companies use Tweetdeck. Centum , Britam, Unaitas and KPMG East Africa use the Twitter Web Client .
Bigwigs
Looking at 105 twitter personalities with the largest twitter following in Kenya, 91 tweet via the native twitter applications,5 use Mobile web and 3 use Instagram.
Other Unique Twitter Clients
Kenya Power tweets via LanSupport while DSTV and GOTV tweet via LithiumTech. Ford In Kenya use Adobe Social.
The Central Bank, BitPesa and the GinaDin group tweet via Buffer which costs up to $10 for individuals and $99 for small teams and agencies monthly to manage Twitter,Facebook,Instagram,LinkedIn and Pintrest.
The IEBC tweets voter registration reminders via the Twitter Web Client.
More and more individuals and organisations continue to use 140 characters to create messages to their audiences, be it colleagues,friends or potential customers.
There are 313 million monthly active users on twitter with 82% of these using twitter on mobile devices.The difference between the first party apps and the third party apps are the options on tweet scheduling, access to notifications ,launching marketing campaigns, monitoring hashtags, identifying audiences,twitter analytics and managing streams among many others.
Pick a tool?
Most of the paid apps offer free trial periods which allow you to compare experiences for the intended use.
For instance,when considering a free option Tweetdeck is a better option to manage several twitter accounts while Hootsuite will allow you to manage Facebook,Twitter and Instagram.
Happy picking.
