Egyptian striker Mohamed Salah ended 2017 as the African footballer with the highest number of followers on social media, according to the African Social Media Power Report: Top 50, released by sport communication company, CampsBay Media on Friday, January 26, 2018.
Salah, with a combined following of 17m on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, pipped Cote d’Ivoire’s Didier Drogba to second place and Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o to third place on the list of the top 50 most followed African footballers.
Nigeria’s Victor Moses finished in 16th place with combined 2.54m followers in the report that was compiled until December 2017.
The other Nigerians on the Top 50 are Alex Iwobi (35th) with 1.28m followers, John Obi Mikel (43rd) with 711k, Kelechi Iheanacho (45th) with 566k, Obafemi Martins (49th) with 362,000 and Nnamdi Oduamadi (50th) with 296k.
“Monitoring the social media following of African footballers helps to gauge the pulse of the popularity of the players as their careers grow and they become household names,” said Lolade Adewuyi, chief strategist of CampsBay Media.
Salah overtook Drogba on the back of his end-of-year success where he led Egypt to qualify for their World Cup for the first time since 1990. The 25-year-old won the BBC African Player of the Year award in December before capturing the Aiteo CAF Player of the Year diadem in January.
The social media following of the Egyptian is expected to grow as his good form at Liverpool continues as well as a good showing at the World Cup in Russia.
Download the full report via this link: http://bit.ly/2DA1CsS
Credit: CampsBay Media
