Nelson Mandela’s birthday: the online conversations [Infographic]

You may have seen what Nelson Mandela’s life story could have looked like if social media had been around since before the fall of apartheid, but what did internet users really have to say on his 94th birthday yesterday? His name trended world wide on Twitter and the YouTube tributes poured in — and all the while, online reputation management company BrandsEye was monitoring the buzz.

Birthday wishes and stories of how people were spending their 67 minutes on Mandela Day were sent from around the world — from the White House and entrepreneur Richard Branson to South African celebrities. But just how big was it?

Pretty big. According to this infographic by BrandsEye, more than 160 000 people have taken to the web to speak about Mandela’s birthday this month, resulting in more than 300-million opportunities to see the conversation world wide — that’s around 15% of the global online population. If you’d paid every one of them to tweet, you’d be more than R83-million (US $10-million) poorer. Yesterday alone, more than 120 000 conversations were dedicated to the former South African president. What a birthday.