Former 5FM DJ Gareth Cliff may boost adoption of instant messaging service WeChat in South Africa as the ‘shock-jock’ plans to launch a channel on the app for his new internet radio venture.
This is the view of Mike Wronski, the managing director of social media monitoring firm Fuseware, which last year unveiled research with World Wide Worx that reported that 53% of South African mobile users use WhatsApp while just 5% use WeChat.
WhatsApp, which has been bought by social media giant Facebook this year, focuses purely on messaging without advertising. WeChat also focuses on a messaging functionality. but it offers rich content and gaming as well.
WeChat - which is owned by Chinese internet giant Tencent - says it has a market of over 100 million active users outside of China, mainly in India and surrounding countries. But WeChat has struggled to take off in South Africa, despite South African media giant Naspers having a stake in Tencent.
However, one man may help boost WeChat’s fortunes in South Africa as he prepares to launch his new venture ‘Cliffcentral.com’ on 1 May.
Late last month, Gareth Cliff shocked his South African listeners when he announced that he, along with certain members of his morning radio show team on national music station 5FM, were quitting their jobs.
On his 5FM show, Cliff gained a reputation for pushing the boundaries of free speech, often landing himself in trouble with South Africa’s broadcasting complaints commission.
The ‘shock jock’ has also garnered among the most Twitter followers for a South African at over 600,000, while on Facebook the radio star has over 400,000 likes
And on Sunday, Cliff revealed a YouTube video that clearly indicates his online radio station dubbed ‘CliffCentral.com’ is planned to have a dedicated WeChat channel as well.
“Gareth Cliff is one of the most influential people in the country on social media, so his partnership with WeChat is a clever move by both parties,” Wronski told ITWeb Africa.
“WeChat will definitely receive a significant boost from this exposure, but whether the masses are ready for streaming audio content on their phones in South Africa remains to be seen.
“There is a mental barrier that data costs are still too high, so WeChat will need to convince the public that using their platform has become affordable for the average Joe,” Wronski added.
South Africa has over 50 million handsets, according to research firm BuddeComm.
Yet the country’s smartphone take-up rate is relatively low compared to its feature phone adoption figures. South Africa’s biggest mobile operator Vodacom in February this year said it had 7.2 million smartphones on its network out of its total of 25 million active subscribers in the country.
“I believe that WeChat may still be premature in this market, as many mobile users push back against high data usage by apps built around multimedia content,” Wronski noted.
WeChat may be premature for the South African market at this stage, but Wronski told ITWeb Africa that the social network should not be written off.
“WeChat’s strength lies in its focus on rich content and gaming, which could see it overtake Whatsapp in the future as users demand a more integrated chat experience.
“It also provides unique bells and whistles such as cloud storage, gaming services and radar features – the latter allowing you to add people in your vicinity to your friends list so you can meet new people.
“I think WeChat’s major play is to become an integrated social component into our broader phone experience, which would include things like streaming online radio. Although this is ambitious, it is backed up by a company with solid fundamentals and great management team, so I believe they’re going in the right direction,” Wronski told ITWeb Africa.
Brett Loubser, managing director of WeChat Africa, has told ITWeb Africa regarding the Cliffcentral channel that it is a “mutually beneficial partnership”.
“Gareth and his team are embarking on a ground-breaking, disruptive initiative and WeChat is a core technology partner to CliffCentral. We are working very closely to deliver a highly interactive Official Account (OA) that stands to fundamentally change radio audience interaction,” Loubser told ITWeb Africa.
Loubser has further told ITWeb Africa that Ultimate Media, an independent radio specialist agency, negotiated the deal on behalf of WeChat and CliffCentral.
Loubser has also claimed that WeChat is a “powerful enabler for brands to use as an engagement tool”.
“We are focussing on partnerships such as Big Brother Mzansi Secrets and CliffCentral.
“The BigBrother Official Account (OA) on WeChat had 147,384 followers by the end of the season,” Loubser said.
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