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Influencer marketing is evolving, and so is the way brands measure success. That’s why Meltwater is proud to announce a new partnership with YouTube, integrating YouTube’s Creator Partnerships API directly into our Influencer Marketing platform.

Introducing Verified YouTube Data in Meltwater Influencer Marketing

Today, PR teams aren’t just tracking media coverage and share of voice. They’re also measuring how their brand shows up in AI-generated answers, search summaries, and large language models (LLMs). This new LLM visibility layer is quickly becoming a critical part of PR performance.

15 Must-Have PR KPIs and How to Track Them

See how one platform can power every decision across PR, communications, and marketing.

The Meltwater Blog

Blog Topics: Generative Engine Optimization, Media Intelligence, Media Relations, Social Listening, Consumer Intelligence, Influencer Marketing

Find out how you can leverage Facebook to boost your brand's online presence and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

Facebook Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage Instagram to boost your brand's visual appeal and gain a competitive edge. Explore our category page today!

Instagram Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage LinkedIN to grow your professional network and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

LinkedIn Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage TikTok to elevate your brand with creative content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

TikTok Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage X / Twitter to engage your audience effectively and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

X / Twitter Blog | Meltwater

Find out how you can leverage YouTube to create engaging video content and gain a competitive edge. Explore the Meltwater category page today!

YouTube Blog | Meltwater

Every day billions of conversations take place on social media: tweets, posts, comments, blogs, reviews, podcasts, and much more.
Learn how to use social listening to make sense of all of that data.

On our social listening category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around social listening and social media monitoring. Read more.

Social Listening Blogs | Category

Business Reputation Management: What does it take to add reputation management to your marketing strategy? More importantly, how do you keep your reputation sparkly and shiny? Here’s your all-access guide to online reputation management for the long term.

On our reputation management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around business reputation management. Read more.

Reputation Management Blogs | Category

From your brand's logo to your website, your social media presence to your customer support—these elements combined are what constitutes a brand in the minds of customers. But, there are thousands of other businesses that have a logo, website, social media presence, and website. So, how can you position your business on the market and make it stand out from the competition?
The key to success is branding & brand management!

On our brand management category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around brand management. Build your strategy and reach your goals!

Brand Management Blogs | Category

Competitive intelligence and the act of collecting competitive data can be seen as growth drivers for a company. Our guide will help you understand the concept of competitive intelligence (CI) by answering questions such as: What is the definition of competitive intelligence? How is competitive intelligence useful to organizations? What is the goal of competitive intelligence? And more.

On our competitive intelligence category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around competitive intelligence. Learn how to stay ahead.

Competitive Intelligence Blogs | Category

Let’s dive into the customer journey framework and how to optimize the process by creating a customer journey map and using metrics that matter when analyzing the customer journey.

On our customer journey category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Customer Journey Blogs | Category

What Is Data Analytics? [Beginner’s Guide 2023]
How can I grow my business? 
How do customers interact with my newly launched product?
How do I increase the productivity of my employees?
How do I know if my marketing efforts are working?
We have just two words for you...Data analytics!

On our data analytics category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around AI and data analytics. Technical and still easy to understand.

AI & Data Analytics Blogs | Category

Public relations and media relations can add impact to any marketing strategy. It’s an opportunity for brands to grow their reach beyond traditional sales messages. PR helps to shape the image you want people to have of your brand.
So, what is PR and how do you use it? This guide shows you everything you need to know to build a strong public relations foundation.

On our public relations (PR) category page, you find all our blogs covering public relations and communications topics. Step up your PR game.

Public Relations (PR) Blogs | Category

We all know exactly what the roles of sales or accounting are in a company, right? We might even have a slight idea of what the IT guys are doing.
But there is another business discipline, that plays a crucial role in organizations, even more so during the pandemic – internal communications!
But what exactly do we mean by that, what purpose does it serve and what steps can you take to ensure you and your employees will communicate effectively?

On our internal communications category page, you find all our blogs about internal comms topics. Learn about the intranet, internal newsletters, and more.

Internal Communications Blogs | Category

As the internet has taken root in more areas of our lives — everything from entertainment to shopping to paying bills and more — traditional marketing is becoming less impactful. As any marketer knows, you need to focus on where your audience is if you want to reach them. Since the average person spends about seven hours a day online, it’s no surprise that content has maintained its hold on marketers.

Here's a closer look at what content marketing is and why it matters more than ever in our digital-first economy.

On our content marketing category page, you find blogs about content marketing topics. Learn about strategies, KPIs, tips, and more. Make your content king!

Content Marketing Blogs | Category

The rise of the influencer marketing space – today a $10 billion industry, growing 50% per year – is one of the clearest examples of how social media is transforming traditional marketing. These days having a business website, presence on social, PR coverage, and your own content isn’t enough to compete.
We'll dive into the intricacies of influencer marketing to help ensure that you're equipped with the insights needed to be successful in this space.

On our influencer marketing category page, you find blogs about influencer marketing topics. Build your strategy, find influencers, and measure results.

Influencer Marketing Blogs | Category

Have you just launched a new product or service that you want to get the word out about? Maybe you want to share with consumers why it is awesome and how it is so much better than the one your competitors offer.

Well, then, there is one thing you can't do without...Marketing!

On our marketing category page, you find blogs about marketing topics. Learn about all the different angles and types of marketing and improve your results.

Marketing Blogs | Category

In this guide, we want to give you a peek into the definition of social media management, the daily schedule of a social media manager, social media platforms to promote your business, and the do’s & don’ts of social media management.
Are you ready to begin the journey of becoming a social media superstar?

On our social media management category page, you find blogs about social media management topics. Build and manage your online community.

Social Media Management Blogs | Category

Building a following and using social media platforms to reach a wider audience requires a well-planned social media marketing strategy. In this guide, we’ll be looking at why social media marketing is so essential and how you can make it work for your business.

On our social media marketing category page, you find blogs about social media marketing topics. Learn how to get the highest paid social ROI!

Social Media Marketing Blogs | Category

In the fast-evolving realm of digital marketing and public relations, utilizing the right tools is crucial for success. Our interdisciplinary category showcases all the pertinent tools for digital marketing & PR. These tools help in enhancing your online presence and effectively reaching target groups, whether through reputation management, influencer marketing, or social media management.

On our digital marketing and PR tools category page, you find all our blogs covering topics around mapping and understanding the customer journey.

Digital Marketing & PR Tools Blogs | Category

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is transforming how brands show up in AI-powered search. Explore insights, strategies, and best practices to help your content rank and resonate across conversational engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

Explore insights and strategies for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help your brand stay visible and discoverable in AI-powered search.

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) Blog Collection | Meltwater

Does the new season of Max’s The White Lotus have you dreaming of a luxury vacation to Thailand? That’s what some in Thailand’s tourism industry are hoping, including the nation’s Tourism Authority, which offered direct support to the show’s production. The Four Seasons hotels in Maui and Taormina saw increased business after being featured in seasons one and two of the show respectively, and the same growth is likely for the Four Seasons Koh Samui currently featured in season three. But is the popular US show actually making more people want to travel to Thailand? We used our social listening and analytics solution to take a closer look at The White Lotus’s impact on digital conversation and what it means about TV tourism.

“Screen tourism”, “movie-induced tourism”, “TV tourism”, and similar terms refer to the phenomenon of a place becoming a popular tourist destination after being featured in a TV show or movie. From The Sound of Music inspiring fans to visit Salzburg, Austria, to The Lord of the Rings boosting New Zealand’s tourism industry, popular entertainment driving travel isn’t a new trend. But today, marketers can use social listening solutions to track how entertainment shapes public discussion in real time, improving their ability to engage new audiences and tap into emerging trends.

Is The White Lotus boosting interest in traveling to Thailand?

Broadcast, news, and social media mentions of The White Lotus compared to English-language mentions of keywords and phrases about visiting Thailand.

According to the digital conversation, not so much. From January 1 to March 24, 2025, the day after the sixth of eight episodes of The White Lotus aired on Max, there were about 5.26 million mentions of the show across broadcast, news, and social media sources including X, Reddit, and Bluesky. However, in the same period of time, there were about 553,000 mentions of wanting to visit Thailand and related keywords and phrases with no significant spikes coinciding with airings of the show. 

Broadcast, news, and social media mentions of English-language keywords and phrases about visiting Thailand.

The one exception is on February 17 when the Thailand tourism conversation spiked the day after the show’s premiere. However, it was only the fifth-biggest spike overall with the Tourism Authority of Thailand’s activation with celebrities BamBam and Mawin driving the biggest surge in conversation in January. Meanwhile, a March 8 spike that occurred the same day episode four aired was coincidental, sparked by a news story about tourists in Thailand unrelated to the Max show.

The White Lotus’s limited impact (so far) on the digital conversation may come as a surprise for those who have been hearing news about TV tourism for years now, particularly following the runaway success of the series Yellowstone and its undeniable effect on Montana tourism as well as the film Crazy Rich Asians’ boost to organic search interest in Singapore. One key difference is that, unlike Montana, Salzburg, New Zealand, and Singapore, Thailand already ranks in the top 10 most popular tourist destinations in the world. Instead, media outlets may simply be more eager to anticipate the next screen tourism success. For example, when we analyze the overlapping Thai tourism and The White Lotus conversations, we can see that media coverage is a significant force behind the buzz, compared to social media chatter.

Mentions of English-language keywords and phrases about visiting Thailand and mentions of The White Lotus split by source type.

More than half of the nearly 14,700 mentions of tourism to Thailand and the show The White Lotus came from news and broadcast sources alone. Those mentions spiked significantly in the lead up to the show’s premiere as top outlets like the New York Times, BBC, Australia’s ABC, and many more around the world reported on the expected Thai tourism boom. Meanwhile, the social media side of the conversation was significantly driven by buzz about just one person. More than a third of the nearly 6,500 social media mentions of Thai tourism and the show also mentioned “Lisa” aka Lalisa Manobal of the K-pop group Blackpink. 

Now, if you haven’t heard of Lisa before, count yourself in the minority. She is currently one of the most famous people on Earth. Lisa having her acting debut on The White Lotus has been a huge boon for the series, with about 47% of all mentions of the show also mentioning her. So whatever boost Thailand’s tourism industry may see from The White Lotus, much credit is due to its most famous cast member. That’s exactly why the Thai government has already formally thanked Lisa for increasing American tourist interest in Koh Samui, Thailand, where the show’s third season is set.

Screen tourism is certainly making headlines, but its effectiveness in driving tourism isn’t quite the sure thing many may assume. Instead, individual entertainers’ impact on mass tourism may be proving to be a much bigger force. Tourism boards have famously linked up with celebrities before, from the Korean Tourism Organization’s 2022 campaign featuring Suga and Jimin of the K-pop group BTS to Barbados’ long-standing partnership with Rihanna. Meanwhile, the Singapore Tourism Board has found success (and controversy) with its more recent focus on event tourism. In February, the agency reported that Singapore’s tourism sector saw record levels of spend in 2024, thanks in part to having secured Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Coldplay to make the country the exclusive South East Asia stops of their high-profile, global tours.

Overall, the case of The White Lotus, Lisa, and Thailand highlights the importance of having a multi-pronged approach for marketers looking to drive tourism interest. At the same time, it raises questions about how tourism marketers can better capitalize on social media conversations driven by popular TV shows as they air, not just in anticipation of them.  

The White Lotus, Lisa, and the TV Tourism Phenomenon

AI is being leveraged on social media at a faster and faster rate. While others are busy using AI to compose symphonies or come up with tasty recipes, its real magic shines when it applies to everyday business challenges, like the never-ending demand for fresh, engaging social media content.

AI social media management tools tap into the broad capabilities of artificial intelligence and distill them into an intentional, accessible platform. These tools don’t just automate the grunt work — they inspire new ideas and elevate your strategy. 

With AI, you can create, optimize, and schedule posts with greater efficiency, making social media faster, smarter, and easier than ever. Let’s dig into the best AI social media management tools on the market and how they’re changing the game for marketers everywhere.

Why AI Social Media Management Tools are Essential

Choosing the Right Al Social Media Management Tool

Given the broad capabilities of artificial intelligence, marketers are increasingly eager to find ways to apply AI in their daily work. AI provides the common thread that weaves together automation, content creation, and analytics, allowing marketers to do more with fewer resources.

However, the size and scope of AI can be a bit overwhelming at times. Too many capabilities can send marketers down a rabbit hole of testing and experimenting, only to come up empty when creating predictable, repeatable processes.

That’s the beauty of AI social media management tools. They’re designed for a specific piece of your marketing machine — creating, optimizing, and scheduling content across all of your social media channels.

Marketers can manage all of their social processes from one place. And with the capabilities of AI, they can make better predictions about what to post, when to share, what hashtags to use, and how people really feel about their content (beyond likes and shares).

TIP: Download our guide to AI for Social Media Management to discover more tools, strategies, and prompts that will make your social program more efficient and effective!

AI in marketing is constantly evolving, with new tools emerging all the time. For now, let’s explore 10 of the best AI tools for social media management and how they can add value to any social strategy. 

Meltwater's AI-powered social intelligence suite centralizes your social media presence into a single platform, giving you a bird’s eye view of all of your channels and content. You can create and schedule posts from within the platform and get AI-powered recommendations on the best times to post for each channel. 

You can get a live feed of your content to see what’s resonating with your audience and insights into how your efforts impact your brand’s visibility and bottom line. It works across all social media channels, including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and even up-and-coming Chinese social media sites.

One of Meltwater’s unique advantages is its social listening integration. Effective social media isn’t just about having something to post; it’s about connecting with your audience on an emotional level. 

To do this, you need to know what your audience is talking about, how they’re talking about it, and how they feel about it. 

Social listening uses AI to analyze millions of conversations in real time and the sentiments around those conversations. You can join in authentically and make lasting connections via content.

Want to see Meltwater's AI-powered social intelligence suite in action? Click here and fill out the form below for a personalized demo!

HubSpot’s social media management tools are part of the platform’s Marketing Hub. That means you can plan, manage, and track marketing multi-channel campaigns spanning across socials and all other touchpoints within unified dashboards. 

The platform’s social media manager includes inbox management with keyword-monitoring streams, ideal posting time suggestions, cross-channel scheduling with network-specific edits, and more.

Most notably, it includes access to HubSpot Breeze, a set of specialized AI assistants designed to handle work across multiple departments. For example, the Social Media Agent helps generate social media posts, provides ideal hashtags, campaign ideas, and content format suggestions using historical performance data, and more.

Buffer has been in the social media management game for a while, emerging as a content library and social scheduling tool. Now it’s evolved into an AI social media tool that simplifies your work even more. 

It’s still a place where users can upload and store content, collaborate on posts, schedule content to go live, and analyze each post’s performance. But now it includes an AI assistant to help you generate ideas and turn them into ready-to-publish visuals.

Buffer’s AI assistant can draft copy based on your ideas, create personalized posts, generate multiple versions for A/B testing, and even repurpose content into new posts. 

The platform supports a wider range of social media channels that other tools may not, including Threads, Bluesky, Google Business Profile, and Mastodon. You can be in more places at once while staying organized and alert. 

Tailored to ads and social posts, Predis.ai learns about your website and other business details to create content on your behalf. You can specify details like your brand colors, social handles, tone of voice, font, branded hashtags, and other elements — kind of like building a media kit for Predis. 

Once you input your details, the tool will generate tons of videos or static posts that fit your request, ready for you to use as-is or tweak to your liking.

Predis guides you through the process, step by step. Even if you’ve never used AI tools before or have no eye for art, you can use Predis to craft stunning posts that look like they took hours to develop. The tool does almost all of the work and can help with posting on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

Another popular name among social media monitoring tools, CoSchedule adds the AI element to its content calendar. Its AI assistant, Hire Miaa, learns to write in your brand voice to speed up the way you create headlines, captions, blog posts, and more. 

It can help with brainstorming, research, editing, and optimizing content for SEO, and even create campaigns from resource materials so you can launch your next idea faster.

Specifically for social media, CoSchedule’s AI assistant can generate hashtags and YouTube tags and write posts for all of your channels. It includes 1,600+ AI prompt templates as well as the option to create your own prompts. 

Hire Mia uses a chat-like interface so you can talk back and forth and fine-tune your results until you get it perfect.

TIP: Don't miss Meltwater's own library of prompt templates and examples for social media managers! Download our free Prompts Guide for 80+ prompt ideas that can quickly be plugged into ChatGPT or other generative AI tools.

Quuu specializes in tools to help you grow your social media following on Facebook, LinkedIn, and X. It uses AI to curate content that aligns with your brand’s audience and tone. Content curation takes the grunt work out of constantly coming up with fresh ideas and original content.

You get the benefit of always having something interesting to share and staying top of mind with your audience.

AI adds to the experience by coaching you in your content choices. It analyzes your audience and behaviors to select content they’re likely to be interested in. The platform automatically schedules posts on your behalf to maximize engagement. And it does all of the above in a way that’s tailored to your brand and what makes it unique.

Eclincher is among the top AI content marketing tools, with the option to create content, automate the publishing process, and centralize your social inboxes. The AI editor lets you draft custom posts and images in seconds, with options to shape the tone, style, length, and other specifics without a lot of hands-on involvement. 

Eclincher will organize each post on your calendar, giving you a clear visual for what you’re posting and where gaps might exist.

The platform also incorporates employee advocacy features to share content your employees create. Every employee is a potential content creator for your company, and you’ll have an endless supply of posts that can help you build your employer image.

SocialBee offers an all-in-one AI tool for social media that makes light work of managing every channel. You can integrate common content marketing tools like Canva and Unsplash and create all of your posts in one place. From there, you can schedule posts, analyze performance, and engage with your audience.

The AI assistant analyzes your posts and generates an ideal content plan in minutes. It takes into account your posting frequency, brand tone, social channels, and more, then creates tailored strategies for each channel. The tool also includes AI image prompts to help you dress up your text posts.

Whether you need to schedule Instagram posts, TikTok videos, or basic Facebook posts, Sprout Social covers your entire social media strategy. The platform embeds AI and automation in all of its features, from finding ideas to inspire your content to optimizing scheduling and publishing times. AI can also draft captions and suggest content to share with your audience, saving you hours on content creation and strategy each month.

This social media AI tool includes a central content calendar where you can plan and schedule posts across channels, view optimal send times, and establish approval processes. It also doubles as an asset library where you can store images, videos, captions, and more for repurposing.

Tip: Take a look at other Sprout Social alternatives.

Flick is an AI-powered social media marketing platform that uses a social assistant, Iris, to streamline the social media process. You can link Iris to your website, where it can learn more about what you do, who you serve, and what makes you unique. 

From there, it will develop a social media strategy complete with posts and scheduled dates and times.

Users can automate much of the process with Flick, which allows teams to focus on strategy and other priorities. The platform includes built-in generative AI that can draft captions, hashtags, and images. You’ll always have the final say, but Flick gets you most of the way there.

Using AI social media management tools is becoming more common and accepted. These tools empower human creativity without replacing it, ensuring you have a better and faster way to stay connected with your audience.

Meltwater continues to push the boundaries of creativity and innovation with AI-powered social media tools that help you work smarter. Centralize all of your social media accounts and engage with your audience from one interface. Use social listening to learn what topics others are talking about and understand the meanings behind them. 

Most importantly, turn information into answers with data that is spelled out for you and get AI-powered recommendations on what to do next.

Learn more about Meltwater for AI social media management when you request a demo by filling out the form below.

Top 10 AI Social Media Management Tools 2026

For the secondhand luxury fashion sector, business is booming with the market projected to surpass $95 billion in value over the next decade. To stay ahead of shifting consumer preferences, marketers need to get strategic about how they analyze this growing audience. Our new consumer insights report dives into what consumer conversations reveal about the luxury resale sector, complete with data-driven insights and takeaways aimed at helping marketers shape winning strategies. 

Download Consumer Insights: Luxury Fashion Resale for our full analysis of this exciting industry. In the meantime, here are three critical insights from the report that marketers, brands, and retailers alike need to know.

(The data referenced includes mentions of relevant keywords, phrases, brand names, and hashtags across global social and digital media sources, as well as blogs, product reviews, podcasts, forums, and social media sources, including X, Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Pinterest from February 1, 2024 to January 31, 2025.)

1. Sustainability is a top driver of pre-loved luxury shopping buzz.

In discussions of buying luxury fashion goods secondhand, social media users mention sustainability, climate change, reducing waste and related keywords more than other purchase drivers like saving money, making money, or collection. 

Content mentioning the positive environmental impact of buying secondhand was especially engaging, highlighting just how much this feel-good aspect of resale shopping resonates with consumers. Prominent keywords like sustainable fashion, authentic, love, and better choice point to resale’s ability to help fashion-forward consumers indulge in their love of luxury and eco-conscious living at the same time. 

Takeaway: Content highlighting environmental benefits like reduced waste is a significant driver of consumer interest in the luxury fashion market. In both the first- and secondhand luxury sector, emphasizing how goods support consumers’ eco-conscious aspirations is a powerful messaging and brand loyalty-building angle for marketers.

2. Starpower and expertise are making resale luxurious.

Some of the most engaging content in the global luxury fashion resale conversation counteracted the idea that secondhand can’t be glamorous. For example, partnerships with Balenciaga and Vogue, promoted by social posts featuring stars Joey King and Madelyn Cline respectively, helped propel eBay’s visibility and engagement with Gen-Z, luxury-first consumers. 

Meanwhile, influencers with luxury goods expertise drive engagement by tapping into secondhand luxury audiences’ love of craftsmanship. The above organic Instagram post by a luxury handbag review influencer praised the team at Fashionphile for helping him authenticate a bag, generating about $39,200 in estimated media value according to our influencer marketing solution. 

Takeaway: Strategic brand partnerships are reshaping how consumers perceive pre-loved luxury fashion goods. From aspirational positioning to in-depth educational content, marketers in the secondhand luxury world are building trust via entities with industry expertise. As economic forces put increased pressure on luxury retailers and brands, such content will be critical in the battle for consumer dollars.

3. Luxury bags generate excitement like no other fashion category

Globally, secondhand luxury content about bags performed better on social media than other categories like clothes, watches, and shoes. As everyday, functional items that can become part of the wearer’s signature look (or act as a highly visible status symbol), high-end, pre-loved bags are go-tos for secondhand luxury shoppers. Everything from educational content, like the influencer post previously mentioned, to Pinterest pins linking users to resale listings for in-demand styles drives engagement and reach among fashion lovers on the hunt for specific bags. When we break the conversation down by platform, Poshmark and Fashionphile emerge as leaders in luxury resale bag conversations on social media. Meanwhile, eBay, which had about 50% share of voice overall, was the most mentioned platform in discussions about luxury watch resale.

Takeaway: Luxury bags have wide appeal and visibility for secondhand luxury shoppers, appealing to both status- and budget-conscious audiences. Marketers can draw from the success of bags by tapping into the emotional connections driving engagement, translating them into messaging and positioning around other luxury items like shoes, watches, and clothes. 
That’s just a taste of the insights included in Consumer Insights: Luxury Fashion Resale, created using our consumer intelligence and influencer marketing solutions. Download the report for our full analysis and start refining your approach to luxury, resale, and fashion retail audiences.

Three Crucial Luxury Fashion Resale Insights for Marketers

Despite many of our favourite social media platforms turning 20 in the next year or so (let that sink in), they’re showing no signs of aging. In fact, almost the opposite is true. It’s 2025, and the use of social media in South Africa continues to grow and evolve.

But as new features take root – short form video, user-generated content, marketplace functionality –  they shape the general expectations of what social media platforms can and should supply, and what consumers expect of brands. For this reason, brands need insights to stay updated and adaptable with their social media marketing strategies.

Alongside branded content, robust social media analytics tools provide these insights. Uncover the social media trends applicable for your brand, and never miss a thing by making use of a social listening tool.

In this blog, we expand on some of the key South African social media statistics found in the Global Digital Report 2025 - produced in partnership with Meltwater and We Are Social. 

General 2025 Social Media Statistics for South Africa

eCommerce & Online Shopping Statistics for South Africa

Main Reasons For Using Social Media in South Africa

Most Used Social Platforms in South Africa

South African Digital & Social Media Statistics: Key Takeaways

50.8 million people use the internet (78.9%)

26.7 million people use social media (41.5%)

124 million mobile connections are active (193% of the population)

As of early 2025, there are over 50 million internet users in South Africa. This is up over 2.5 million users from 2024, showing the continued growth of internet accessibility in the country. Interestingly, although there are over 50 million internet users, only 26.7 million are social media users. Although this is up 2.7% year-on-year, it shows how much growth potential is still available to social media platforms.

Cellular mobile connections number 124 million. For context, many South Africans make use of more than one mobile connection, which is why this figure exceeds the figures for total population.

99.3% of South African internet users own smartphones, further underlining the accessibility of mobile phones and the connection preference of the user. In comparison, 79.1% of users own a computer. This is why South African brands should adopt a mobile-first approach to their marketing, both in terms of strategy and creative rollout.

Looking at the statistics behind the media consumption in South Africa, it is notable to see that neither television nor radio have dipped, despite the domination of the internet and online accessibility. Broadcast TV is used by 89.5% of South African internet users (in comparison to 76.2% who stream video content), and broadcast radio is used by 79.4% of users (with 78.8% of users streaming music content).

This shows that, even with internet access, TV and radio media maintain their popularity. For brands, this presents the opportunity for omnichannel marketing, ensuring presence across online and traditional media spaces. 

While some 14 million South Africans do not have access to the internet, those that do spend more time online, on average, than any other country in the world. South African users spend an average of 9 hours, 37 minutes per day actively online.

South African users daily time spent on the internet: 9 hours, 37 minutes

South Africa has the highest internet usage rate in the world. This figure is almost exactly the same as last year, suggesting that many internet users in South Africa have developed (and are comfortable with) an always-online lifestyle. 

Main Reasons for Using the Internet in South Africa

Information access is a major factor for users aged 16 - 64 using the internet, tying into 4 of the top 5 reasons listed.

Staying in touch with friends and family - 72.6%

Top Website Types Visited in South Africa

Website and app usage in South Africa reflects the main reasons listed for using the internet, namely information sourcing and talking to friends and family. Entertainment websites, such as music services and food delivery apps, are noticeably less popular than social and communication websites.

Online Learning Statistics for South Africa

South African users don’t just spend the most time online, they’re also the country with the most users turning to the internet as a source of learning. 58.5% of users watch tutorials, educational content, and how-to-videos every week. The global average: 40.2%.

While social media, websites and other online presence gives brands credibility, South Africans are statistically less likely to trust internet information. 80.5% of South African internet users express concerns about misinformation online, a figure only topped by Kenyan and Nigerian internet users, and considerably higher than the global average of 58.8%.

Online shopping continues to grow in South Africa, crossing the 10 million mark and exhibiting a healthy growth rate of 9.3% (up to 10.4 million online shoppers from 9.49 million this time last year). Mirroring South Africa’s reliance on mobile phone connections, 51.7% of all online purchases were made via smartphones.  

10.4 million South African internet users made a purchase online in 2024

51.7% of purchases were made via mobile phones

The growth of the eCommerce sector in South Africa provides brands with further opportunities to reach their end user, both in terms of actual sales as well as online advertising. Note that these numbers only include B2C eCommerce sales and don’t include marketplace or user-to-user sales facilitated online.

Factors Driving Online Purchases in South Africa

67.3% of users cite free delivery as the biggest driver behind a purchase

53.8% of users are invested in loyalty programs

43.8% of users are interested in coupons or discounts

For South African internet users, discount mechanisms trump convenience factors when driving purchase behaviour. Incentives such as free delivery or a loyalty points system prove to be considerably more effective than the convenience aspect of next-day delivery or a simple checkout system.

South Africans are some of the most active social media users in the world. 26.7 million users aged 18 and above have used social media at the beginning of 2025 – the equivalent to 59.9% of the total population aged 18 and above.

Social media users in South Africa increased by 700 000 between early 2024 and early 2025. The gender split is negligible (48.7% female, 51.3% male), and the average number of platforms per user sits at just over 8.

On average, a South African internet user spends 3 hours 36 minutes on social media per day.

This is more than 1.5 times that of the global average - 2 hours 21 minutes - and puts South Africa only behind Kenya and Chile in terms of time spent on social media platforms. For brands, this shows what an important aspect social media makes to an overall marketing strategy for South African audiences.

Meltwater’s Marketing Tip: As South Africans are on social media for a significant amount of time, brands need to be aware of the social trends and conversations happening in their industry. Consumer preferences and behaviours are constantly evolving, so using social media monitoring tools like the Meltwater social listening tool allows brands to follow trends, create content, plan effective campaigns, connect with audiences and correctly position their brand. 

South African internet users look to social media for several reasons, including networking, reading new articles, watching videos or live streams, or conducting work-related research.

Keeping in touch with friends and family - 64.8%

Finding inspiration for things to do and buy - 43.6%

Communication and inspiration make up most of the reasons South African social media users spend time on the platforms. Knowing where (and why) users spend their time where they do can allow brands to create content that enhances the overall social media experience, rather than simply creating content and hoping it resonates with audiences.

Compared to the global average of 38.3%, 52.6% of South African users say that social media makes up part of their work activity. This can be directly related, as a social media manager or coordinator, or using social media to find information and conduct research.

63% of South African users visit social media to seek out brand content

South African users are some of the most likely to turn to social media to learn more about brands. For brands, this provides the opportunity to use social media in the same way: by providing users with the type of content they may be looking for. Practically, this could be anything from new features or product launches to more soft-sell content like behind-the-scenes material.

Understanding this purchasing behaviour is crucial. If users are looking to social media platforms in the pre-purchase phase, a seamless integration from the platform to the sale channel is key. Even if they aren’t interested in purchasing yet, brands can provide audiences with a good customer experience and begin to shape brand loyalty.

South African Digital & Social Media Statistics 2025

Note: This blog is based on the Global Digital Report 2025 (Digital 2025 India) – produced in partnership with Meltwater and We Are Social. See Simon Kemp's article about The Essential Guide to the Global State of Digital in 2025. Download the Global Digital Report 2025 for free.

India, the country with the highest total population in the world, is home to 1.46 billion people. The digital environment in India is vibrant, with 806 million internet users (55.3% of the population) and 491 million people with social media identities (33.7% of the population). With 1.12 billion cellular mobile connections, down 1.3 million from the previous year, the country's mobile penetration remains high at 76.6%. With just 37.1% of the population living in urban areas, a substantial rural population has yet to be reached via digital platforms, and a massive audience is ready to be engaged through effective social media strategies.

What's ahead for social media in India in 2025?

As previously noted, India is the world's most populated nation, with 1.46 billion citizens as of January 2025. A significant demographic shift occurred in 2023 when India's overall population was officially more than China's.

The median age of India's population is 28.8 years old, making it one of the most youthful nations in the world. India's youthful demography presents both opportunities and challenges compared to Japan's ageing population and much of Europe. Industries that rely on digital services, social media interaction, and technology benefit from a younger workforce suitable for economic development. On the other hand, there is renewed pressure on the country's government to create jobs for a large, eager workforce seeking sustainable livelihoods.

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