From shock-jock radio presenters to legends of the sports world, South Africans love their celebrities and they love to follow them on Twitter. Here are the top 10 most-followed South Africans on Twitter, according to statistics put together by Twitaholic.com.
1. Gareth Cliff @GarethCliff
With 633,526 fans, Gareth Cliff has more Twitter followers than anyone else in South Africa. The radio and TV personality is best known for his weekday breakfast show on 5FM. He joined the social network in 2008 and is ranked 2,891th in the world by followers.
2. Graeme Smith @GraemeSmith49
The professional cricket player is ranked No. 2 in followers in South Africa with 545,885 people seeing his 1,780 updates. He joined the social network in 2009 and is ranked 3,337th in the world by followers.
3. News24 @News24
News24 bills itself as “Southern Africa’s premier online news resource” on its Twitter homepage. Claiming it reaches some 2.3 million users each month, the news station comes in third place with 539,394 fans in terms of Twitter followers.
4. SuperSport @SuperSportTV
This is a website devoted to the latest sports news and updates and its twitter feed is followed by 318,582 people.
5. Tarina Patel @TarinaP
The actress, producer and model comes in at No. 5 with 286,557 followers. She was born in Cape Town, grew up in Durban and got her acting start in Bollywood. She has also appeared on magazine covers including Elle, Glamour, FHM and Cosmopolitan and works as a runway model.
6. Hashim Amla @amlahash
The cricketer has sent out just over 300 tweets, but is proud to announce on his Twitter profile that he doesn’t have a Facebook account. “Trying to keep things real one day at a time,” is the rest of his profile message. His musings are seen by 269,720 followers.
7. Rich Simmonds @RichSimmondsZA
Listed under Who’s Who in South Africa as a “father, professional speaker, influential rule breaker and changemaker … photographer,” Simmonds has some 250,897 followers, making the consultant the seventh most-followed person in South Africa on Twitter.
8. eNCA @eNCAnews
The No. 8 spot is held by eNCA, a 24-hour news channel focusing on South Africa and African stories. The station has 195,637 followers and has sent out 39,000-plus tweets.
9. Terry Pheto @TerryPheto
The South African actress, most famous for playing the leading role of Miriam in the 2005 Oscar-winning feature, “Tsotsi,” comes in at ninth place with 193,302 followers.
10. Nico Baird @nicobaird
With 167,369 followers, Nico Baird comes in 10th place. He is a semi-prolific tweeter for an individual, having sent out some 7,500 messages since joining in 2007. On his Twitter profile he identifies himself as a “Ph.D. candidate in Health and Professions Education, Instructional Designer, Trainer, Writer, Web Entrepreneur, Researcher and Apple Distinguished Educator.”