#AskMmusi: was Mmusi Maimane’s Twitter town hall actually a triumph?

Depending on who you ask, the decision by newly elected Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Mmusi Maimane to host a Twitter town hall on Wednesday afternoon was either a stroke of genius or a complete farce. Many, including myself, were quick to lean toward the latter. The more than 100 000 tweets attached to the #AskMmusi hashtag did, after all, completely overshadow the 40 or so questions he managed to answer during the event. Very few of those questions had anything to do with serious civic engagement either. Even bearing those factors in mind though there’s a strong case to be made that the event couldn’t have gone better for the DA and its new leader.

Would the real Mmusi Maiman please stand up?

It’s easy to see why the DA was so keen to get Maimane front-and-center on the social media platform. Ever since he first came onto the South African political scene as the party’s mayoral candidate for Johannesburg, there’s been a perception that Maimane’s had to overcome one simple but searing question: who are you?

At first, it was just because people genuinely hadn’t ever heard of him. More recently however, some have suggested that the Maimane political machine is so well-crafted that we don’t really know who he actually is.

On that front, Wednesday’s Twitter town hall didn’t reveal any previously hidden depths to the Soweto-born politician. We did however get a sense that his approach to Twitter will be different to that of his predecessor.

While Helen Zille gained plenty of early kudos for being active on Twitter, her combativeness on the platform saw others wishing someone within the party would confiscate her phone.

The questions answered by Maimane revealed that he’ll be a lot more careful on social media than the Western Cape Premier, even when it comes to pronouncing on Beyonce:

You'll need to ask her. Cc. @Beyonce #AskMmusi https://t.co/t1CCI8XQeq

— Mmusi Maimane (@MmusiMaimane) May 13, 2015

The fact that he managed to remain so centered throughout the event would have come as welcome relief to those who feared that Zille’s tweets alienated people outside the party at a time when it’s desperate to draw in new blood and new votes. Maimane probably won’t be as exciting to watch on Twitter, but he may well be a lot less dangerous to his own party.

I’m here to talk

The hope, of course, will be that Maimane can maintain a balanced tone with an active Twitter account. While the number of South Africans on Twitter remains relatively small, if Maimane remains active on the platform, there’ll be a perception that he’s open and engaged. And if at least one tweet from #AskMmusi is anything to go by, that places him significantly ahead of South African president Jacob Zuma:

In one hour long twitter Q&A @MmusiMaimane has engaged more with ordinary south africans than @PresidencyZA has in two terms. #AskMmusi

— shawn roos (@shawnroos) May 13, 2015

Trolls what trolls?

There’s an argument to be made that the vast majority of the people who submitted questions to #AskMmusi were just trolling. But look again at the tweets we gathered for our initial piece on the event. They’re a fairly accurate gauge on the general tone that surrounded the #AskMmusi Twitter town hall. And if those people behind those tweets are trolls, then they’re more like the kind kids collected in the ’90s than the ones more typically associated with Twitter events this big.

And while the joke tweets did drown out the more politically engaged ones, they also drowned out the more vicious kind of troll, effectively shielding Maimane from what could have been an incredibly venomous event.

Sure Maimane would never have faced the same kind of venom as Robin Thicke did during his Twitter AMA.

Positive associations

All those joke tweets, also mean that for the next little while when people think of Mmusi Maimane and Twitter, they will do so with a smile on their face. That’s priceless, especially when attacks on you by ministers within the current ANC administration are gaining serious media traction.

If you take #AskMmusi in isolation, then Maimane comes out looking like what he’s always said he is: the good guy.

Make no mistake, there will come a day when Maimane faces a massive Twitter backlash, but it hasn’t happened yet.