Friedrich Ebert Foundation Publishes Report on the Use of Social Media in Cameroon · Global Voices
Dibussi Tande

The Friedrich Ebert Foundation has published a research report on the use of social media in Cameroon:
To what extent, for what purposes and by whom are social media like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, Linkedin, etc. used in the country? To find answers to these questions, the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation has commissioned a research report on the use of social media in Cameroon…
In terms of the popularity of social media, as elsewhere, Facebook is the single most popular social media tool in Cameroon. Some Cameroonian Facebook groups have up to 20.000 followers and more. More surprising is the strong popularity of Linkedin. Close to 4 Cameroonian internet users out of ten have subscribed to the service, compared to only 3% in neighbouring Nigeria. The search for jobs and employment opportunities may explain at least parts of this puzzle. A quickly increasingly popular social media site is the microblogging service Twitter. Cameroon is now among the top-ten African countries in terms of the tweeted volumes, though Tweeting is heavily concentrated on Douala and Yaoundé. By comparison, blogging is still in an infant stage, given its exceedingly higher demands on time and content. However, for what Cameroonian bloggers may lack in numbers, they more than make up for in terms of quality. Some of Africa’s best blogs come from Cameroon, some of whom are organized in the “Collectif des Blogueurs Camerounais.” In addition, a number of innovations have already emerged that will no doubt accelerate the spread of social media, including the emergence of mobile money which now enables commercial activities.