Africa is leading the rest of the continent and making a mark in the social media world as users tap into these platforms for business and leisure, reports indicate.

Kenya leads the world in global TikTok usage according to the Reuters Institute Digital News report 2023 survey released recently.

Kenya dominates the platform, with a staggering 54% of users engaging in TikTok for various purposes, while 29% specifically rely on it for news consumption.

Thailand comes in second, closely followed by South Africa, where 50% of users engage with TikTok for general content, while 22% use it as a source of news.

At the same time, Meta has revealed that WhatsApp Business, its messaging app designed specifically for small businesses now has more than 200 million monthly active users.

This is a four-fold jump from 2020 when the platform had 200 users according to the company’s chief Mark Zuckerberg.

The continent’s public relations industry continues to grow with the latest entrants The Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) adding two new agencies in Africa and India as full members, enhancing its ability to seamlessly serve clients throughout the world.

The move raises the number of member agencies in the network to 54 and adds local PR and integrated communications expertise from offices in five Sub-Saharan African countries and three major cities in India.

This, as a newly released report by The African Public Relations Association (APRA) and Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) on the state of ethics and public relations industry in Africa for 2023 pointed to the shift in priorities for PR activities in the last two years. The report was based on a survey conducted across 21 African countries with 274 respondents.

Crisis management (44%) has taken over from digital and social media (40%) as the highest priority. Reputation management (42%) is also considered to be a high priority. Ethics management (16%), sales promotion (14%), and event planning (14%) have decreased in importance due to the impact of COVID-19 and the shift towards digitisation.

On news making headlines about the continent and global brands, despite difficult operating conditions, Africa's most valuable brands have demonstrated resilience and growth in 2023, says the latest report by brand valuation consultancy, Brand Finance.

The top 200 brands in Africa have seen a combined year-on-year brand value growth of 6%, reaching a total value of $54.4bn.

South Africa leads the way as the largest contributor, accounting for over half of the brands in the ranking and 75% ($40.8bn) of the total brand value.

And Apple has retained its crown as the world’s most valuable brand, for the second year in a row, in the Kantar BrandZ Most Valuable Global Brands Report 2023.

The latest ranking shows that the total brand value of the world’s top 100 brands now stands at $6.9 trillion for 2023.

Amazon has once again been named the world’s most valuable retail brand, with a brand value of $299.3 billion, according to brand valuation consultancy, Brand Finance.

This is more than double the brand value of Walmart (brand value up 2% to US$113.8 billion). Amazon’s brand value has increased 36% since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and is the world’s most valuable brand across all sectors, according to Brand Finance’s Global 500 2023 report.

In other news that made headlines, Leading up to Savings Month, Nedbank in partnership with agency Joe Public launched their latest campaign showcasing the harsh reality of not saving enough for retirement.

For the activation the campaign took over The Greenhouse, a trendy restaurant in Sandton, Africa’s richest square mile, and substituted the young and lively waitrons with elderly actors who were way past retirement age. It captured everything on hidden cameras to later reach a wider audience online.

And, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Climate-Change-convened Fashion Charter have launched the Sustainable Fashion Communication Playbook, a guide for consumer-facing communicators in the global fashion industry to align efforts to sustainability targets, incorporating both environmental and social factors.

Bob Koigi is an editor at Marketing Report Africa

www.marketingreport.africa