South Africa

It is unclear whether Jacob Zuma is tweeting personally on his personal Twitter account but the tweets are consistently sent from an iPhone on the go. So far he has only tweeted 87 times, but due to his large following (130,000+ followers) his tweets are re-tweeted over 50 times on average. The most popular tweet was posted on 1 June 2011: “Today is the 100 day countdown to the start of the Rugby World Cup. Let us wear our green and gold every Friday in support of the Bokke #RWC” Although it is his personal account, President Zuma’s Twitter stream doesn’t show much interaction with his followers, and he has so far only made one mention. The honor went to the Springboks, the South African rugby team @bokrugby. Unfortunately the account has been dormant since 7 March 2012.

The official account of the presidency of South Africa was set up on 18 May 2009 shortly after the election of Jacob Zuma. The account chronicles the activities of President Zuma and Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, live tweeting his speeches at the World Economic Forum and other events. In February 2011 President Zuma crowdsourced his annual State of the Union address soliciting input from his Twitter followers: “The President wants our Twitter family's views, ideas and comments for his State of the Nation Address.” After the deadline had passed he tweeted: “The President has personally looked at all comments & suggestions & assures the people that some contributions will form part of #SONA2011”, adding "Moving forward, I will continue to engage with this important constituency of our people". However the account is not very conversational as it never @replies to anyone and nor does it mention anyone. The South African presidency tweets on average twice a day and it is worth mentioning their great collection of photos, which have enriched their twitter-stream.