President Jacob Zuma has finally joined Twitter (@SAPresident). One can only speculate that the pressure of the May 18 election is mounting and the president is pulling out all the stops to make sure the African National Congress (ANC) romps to victory, especially in Cape Town.

Mr Zuma follows in the footsteps of Democratic Alliance (DA) leader and Western Cape Premier Helen Zille (@helenzille) and DA Cape Town mayoral candidate Patricia de Lille (@PatriciaDeLille). A few months ago in one of my blog posts, I said SA politicians need to follow Ms Zille’s lead and take social media more seriously. Ms Zille and the DA have taken social media campaigning to a whole new level. Every Sunday in the run up to next week’s poll, the DA hosts a question and answer session on Twitter where users can ask anything concerning the DA and its policies in general. Such a campaign by the DA has helped shape the party’s image to make it look more modern.

Mr Zuma’s first and only tweet thus far was “Democracy is flourishing in South Africa, thanks to the active participation of all citizens. It’s wonderful. Vote 18 May!” In the first few days of signing up, Mr Zuma had attracted over 3000 followers, which is no surprise. The sad thing though is that he only followers one user (@PresidencyZA), it’s more or less like he is following himself! My advice to Zuma is to follow more people, even the ordinary person; it will make such a big difference to his image and by extension that of the ANC.

Tags: #@SAPresident, #Zuma