Social media will become an indispensable tool for South African marketers,  politicians, artists, activists, reporters and media personalities next year. 
 
This was according to the 2017 edition of the South African Social Media Landscape, released this week by technology market researchers World Wide Worx and media monitoring company Ornico.

The study included a survey of 116 major South African brands and indicated  that as many as four social media platforms will become pervasive marketing tools in the country in 2017.

Ornico CEO Oresti Patricios said in a statement that anyone wanting to communicate with the public, consumers or large groups of stakeholders who was not using social media, was not reaching his/her audience.

Ornico became a partner in the social media landscape study after its 2015 acquisition of social media monitoring and analytics company Fuseware, which has been conducting the research with World Wide Worx since 2011.

World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck stated that because Instagram continued to grow at a high rate –  of 32%, up to 3.5-million users – and since YouTube had seen a massive increase in engagement with brands, this confirmed that ‘this type of’ social media if it is meant as this type of media specifically, but if it is meant as social media in general, then delete “the” social media was hardly stagnating.

Goldstuck said social media was maturing into a more stable and measurable environment that could be leveraged more effectively by brands.

In 2016, 91% of these brands were using Facebook, 88% were active on Twitter and 66% were on YouTube.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn slipped from 70% to 63%, as brands struggled to get to grips with its more serious nature. However, Instagram increased sharply from 42% to 62% of brands using it. 
 
When respondents of the survey? were asked what additional platforms they would embrace in 2017, 26% said they would use Instagram, while YouTube was set to attract a further 16%.
 
The study further revealed that, on a consumer level, growth for most networks had slowed down, but that user engagement had intensified.
 
Facebook is currently used by 14-million South Africans, while YouTube has moved firmly into second place, with 8.74-million users, well outpacing Twitter’s slower rise to 7.7-million. LinkedIn maintains its energetic rise, now standing at 5.5-million.
 
One of the most significant trends uncovered was that Facebook, with 14-million users, now had ten-million, or 85% of its users, using mobile devices. This increased significantly from the 77% in 2015.

While a significant number of these users are also accessing Facebook on computers and tablets, the mobile phone is the primary form of accessing social media.