Less than 50 per cent of firms listed on the Nairobi Stock Exchange (NSE) are active on social media. This is according to results of an Interactive Concepts survey released Thursday morning at a breakfast event organised by Saracen OMD. The survey was carried out by Japie Swanepoel who runs the South African based firm. The survey does not include subsidiaries of listed firms and was carried out on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and blogs. Tools used for the survey include Klout and Peerindex for Twitter and Hubspot Marketing Grader for Blogs.
Of the 45 NSE listed companies, 33 per cent were had active Twitter accounts, 42 per cent had a Facebook fan page, 31 per cent had YouTube channel, 31 per cent had a LinkedIn page and only 6% ran blogs.
On Facebook, the firms were ranked by number of fans on their fan pages, with Kenya Power taking the fifth position , AccessKenya the fourth, Kenya Airways third, Standard Media Group second and Safaricom toping the list. Japie says that some firms like Kenya Power were not that regular in their interaction with fans, while for most of the firms still had not figured how to interact with the clients. There are about 1.3 million Kenyans on Facebook.

Several posts on the Kenya Airways page went without comments, but a photo of a new plane received thousands of comments and likes. This he says can guide the companies on what their fans like best. He advises companies on Facebook to be more interactive, like ending their posts with questions, which gives their fans an opportunity to comment. It was however observed that politicians like Uhuru Kenyatta and Martha Karua had more fans than the companies, though Easy FM, a Nation Media Group subsidiary appears to have an even higher number of fans.

On Twitter, the same firms that toped Facebook were at it again, with AccessKenya , Kenya Airways , Kenya Power, Standard Media Group, and Safaricom taking the top positions from fifth to first respectively. The rankings were not based on the number of followers, but on the level of interactions. Safaricom was especially notable, with CEO Bob Collymore being active on Twitter and personally replying to some of the tweets from users.

Blogging saw a decline, with the number of NSE firms on blogs decreasing year on year. The firms that still maintained presence on the platform had bot updated thier blogs in several months. Top blogging firms include Safaricom, Centum, Standard, and Housing Finance Corporation.

On YouTube firms were ranked by number of views on their videos, with Kenya Power taking fifth position, Barclays fourth, Kenya Airways third , Safaricom second and KTN Kenya first.

Commenting on the results, Japie said that most firms needed help managing their online presence, with most not going beyond websites. This he attributed to fear of backlash on going to social media for several firms, while the same firms also needed to be educated on the benefits of social media. "They are cautious, they don't know what the results are and some are afraid," he says

A firms social media strategy depends on what the firm wants to achieve on social media, which can range from selling products such as signing up more clients, booking more rooms .

So far, Kenya is still at initial stages of social media adoption, though Japie sees it among the top three countries in Africa when it comes to social media, and a quick adopter at that. "Yesterday I was on a cab from the airport, and heard this promotion on Ghetto Radio where Coca Cola is telling people to like their Facebook page, they are not even mentioning their website. This is something I had not heard before," he says.

A company is only serious on social media if they are ready to spend money on it, and they will not be serious until they see an opportunity for them to make money on social media, he says. Currently, firms on social media are barely making money in the region.

"Everyone thinks social media is all about selling, but it is also about marketing, public relations, client relationship management and research," says Japie.

The report will be available later at http://www.interactiveconcepts.co.za/