As a Social Media Manager, competitive landscape assessments are routine. Understanding how your brand stacks up against others helps identify weaknesses, highlight opportunity, and define positioning. My typical assessment starts broad—platform presence and following—then narrows into detail: engagement rates, posting frequency, content formats.
One pattern recurs across both South African and UK brands: Facebook and Twitter dominate. YouTube and LinkedIn show steady mid-tier performance. Instagram and Pinterest? They’re usually dead last. The question is: should that still be the case?
Let’s examine why these platforms are neglected, and whether that neglect is justified. To do so, we’ll borrow a familiar structure—with a twist. Let’s start with the ugly, then the bad, and finish with the good.
The Ugly: Platform Penetration
User numbers tell a blunt story. In 2013:
-
Facebook: 9.6 million users in South Africa
-
Instagram: 680,000 users
-
Pinterest: even fewer
For most brand managers, these numbers speak volumes. Why spend limited budget on platforms with such small reach, especially when Facebook practically guarantees a highly targetable audience of millions?
Instagram is further limited by its format—it’s an app, not a web platform. That automatically excludes millions of users on unsupported devices, notably BlackBerry, which at the time still commanded significant market share. In short, brands hoping to reach mass market consumers have historically found Instagram and Pinterest lacking in scale.
The Bad: Platform Limitations and Brand Fit
Facebook and Twitter have refined their paid advertising tools over the years, giving marketers sophisticated ways to segment audiences, manage budgets, and measure results. Instagram and Pinterest—especially in the South African context—simply don’t offer the same flexibility or access. Ad tools have been slow to roll out, and remain restricted to specific markets. For South African advertisers, paid social on these platforms has been more hope than reality.
Then there’s the issue of audience perception. Instagram is often pigeonholed as a hipster haven, known more for latte shots and filter overlays than brand storytelling. Pinterest, meanwhile, skews heavily female, with a user base hovering around 70% women. While neither issue is insurmountable, both require tailored strategies and a clear understanding of your audience.
As a result, many brands jump in half-heartedly—especially on Pinterest—and abandon the platform once it fails to gain traction. In contrast, Facebook and Twitter remain broad-based, accessible, and forgiving. You don’t need perfect visuals to perform well. You just need relevance.
There’s also the technical barrier. Instagram requires iOS or Android. In 2014, that excluded a large portion of the South African market. If your product skews lower-income or mass-market, this limitation could drastically undercut your reach.
The Good: Untapped Potential and Strategic Edge
South Africa is a mid-to-late adopter of most global social trends, including social platforms. This isn’t always a negative. By the time a platform reaches maturity locally, we’ve had years to observe best practice globally. That means smarter, faster execution once we commit.
Consider Audi. Their Instagram presence is slick, focused, and incredibly effective. One post netted over 61,000 Likes. Compared to their Facebook page—where follower count is nearly ten times higher—their Instagram engagement rate is astonishing. On Facebook, a post achieving 14,000 Likes is a win. On Instagram, that’s baseline performance for a well-executed image.
Woolworths is another example. Their Pinterest and Instagram accounts are locally grown success stories. If any brand fits the aesthetic appeal of visual-first platforms, it’s them—but their success proves South African audiences are willing to engage on these channels when content is relevant.
Even more compelling is the profile of users. Instagram and Pinterest attract early adopters—young, mobile-first, tech-savvy consumers who often influence broader market trends. These users are harder to reach through traditional channels, but they’re vocal and engaged. For brands looking to position themselves at the forefront of culture, this matters.
Growth numbers add weight to the argument. Pinterest’s South African user base grew by 136% from 2012 to 2013. Instagram grew from 100,000 users to nearly 700,000 in the same period. These are not mature markets yet—but they are accelerating.
Final Thoughts: Enter with Eyes Open
A social media presence on Instagram or Pinterest takes planning, creative investment, and ongoing effort. User numbers remain relatively low, and without a strong creative strategy, results will underwhelm. South African marketers also don’t yet benefit from the kind of robust paid options that exist elsewhere.
That said, ignoring these platforms entirely would be short-sighted. Pinterest should be approached cautiously—it’s niche, and best suited to brands with a clear visual hook and influencer alignment. Instagram, on the other hand, deserves broader consideration. Its simplicity, storytelling power, and high engagement rates offer a rare opportunity for brands to connect with culture-defining audiences.
As more South Africans shift to Android and iOS, Instagram’s relevance will only grow. Smart brands are already preparing for that future.
