“If I were starting now, I’d do it very differently—but I knew nothing back then. You get this feeling when you’re out here that you kind of have to be in Silicon Valley. There’s all these great engineers out here, there’s great universities, there’s a lot of great VCs, you can get people to help you set up a company well… you can rent data center space—all this stuff,” said 27-year old Zuckerberg.

He added: “It’s not the only place to be, I think…Honestly, if I were starting now, I just would have stayed in Boston.”

Editor’s note: This post was written by Asoto Adeola, an interactive art director, specializing in the fields of Brand Strategy, Brand Identity & Digital Branding. It was originally published on his blog on June 02, 2011.

During a briefing session, a client brought an observation to my notice and raised a question why celebrities/artistes tend to have more fans/followers on social media, so I decided to probe into this to find out whether or not their fan base is a reality of followers or fans, I think I would leave you to judge.

For this post, I wont deliberate on the best fanpage with respect to digital strategy the page administrators are deploying but rather numbers of fans as that would be a later post.

A look at these celebrity pages shows that a reality of our choice of music and how influential they really are in the lives of Nigerians. Although some of these pages rarely interact/engage with their fans, they still raking in likes, well I guess that’s the reason they are popular.

Here are the Top 10 Nigerian Artists/Celebrity On Facebook:

10. Da Grin – 204k + fans

9. D’Banj – 219k + fans

8. Wande Coal – 240k + fans

7. Banky W – 242k + fans

6. Darey – 253k + fans

5.  2 Face Innocent Idibia – 276k + fans

4. M.I. – 331k + fans

3. Don Jazzy – 359k + fans

2. Stephanie Okereke – 384k + fans

1.  Omotola – 570k + fans

One may derive the conclusion that, this list of celebrities are the top Nigerians on facebook except for public figures or politicians (GEJ with 567,826 fans) that might probably have more fans.

NOTE: If I have missed on any celebrity page that should be in the list, please do leave a comment as I have made every effort to ensure that statistics/information is correct as of time of posting (2nd of June, 2011).

Are you a fan of these celebrities?

Images courtesy of AsotoAdeola.com

In the infographic below, Opera looks at the percentage of users who visit the top social sites, and the percentage of page views being directed toward those sites.

The above graph shows the percentage of users who visit the top social networking sites in the top 20 countries, including Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

The above graph shows the percentage of page views being directed toward those social networking sites in the top 20 countries, including Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

No doubt, Facebook is the most popular social networking site in Africa.

Image Via: Opera.com

Nollywood diva, Omotola has gained over 2,000 fans more than President Jonathan recently and seems more popular on the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook.

The actress and singer now has 560k + fans compared to Jonathan’s 558k + fans on Facebook. In early March this year, Jonathan crossed the 500,000 Facebook fans milestone, beating Omotola to it.

In response to this latest trend, Omotola’s Facebook page was updated about an hour ago, saying:

“This page has just been recognized as the page with the highest no of friends for any celebrity in Nigeria with even more friends than the president.”

In March 2011, Omotola emerged the most popular Nigerian celebrity on Facebook with over 500,000 fans, and became the 2nd Nigerian personality, after President Jonathan to cross Facebook’s 500k fans mark.

While the 1 million Facebook fans milestone seems like a long shot, one wonders which of these Nigerian social media personalities would be the first to cross that mark.

Perhaps the most memorable royal wedding to date is that between Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer who got married on the 29^th of July, 1981 at St Paul’s Catheral before an invited audience of 3,500 and an estimated global TV audience of 750 million.

Fast-forward to 2011, about 30 years later and we are about to witness the first social media royal wedding between Prince William & Catherine Middleton, which could become the most memorable royal wedding of all time. William is second in line to the throne and marrying Middleton will make her the next Queen.

Apart from news coverage that could attract viewership from more than 1 billion people around the world, it is expected that people all over the world will be tweeting, facebooking and blogging on the day of the Royal Wedding.

Already, discussions about the Royal Wedding have taken over social media. According to Greenlight, a London-based independent search marketing specialist and technology firm, new research shows that in the past seven days the royal nuptials are getting one new mention every 10 seconds.

About 12 years ago, the world witnessed a Royal Wedding between Prince Edward Windsor and Sophie Rhys-Jones on the 19th of June 1999, but without the help of social media. Even the last Royal Wedding between Peter Phillips, the Queen’s eldest grandson and Autumn Kelly on 17 May 2008 (in the age of social media) couldn’t produce the world’s first social media royal wedding.

But on the 29^th of April, 2011, the world, yeah I mean even the worldwide web and the social web will witness the first ‘Royal Wedding’ of the digital age between Prince William & Catherine Middleton.

The Official Royal Wedding website for Prince William and Catherine Middleton’s wedding was launched on 2nd March and has received 9.5 million page views as at 19th April. The website features news and information about the royal wedding which holds at Westminster Abbey, London at 10 am (GMT +1).

The site, powered by the Google Apps Engine, provides details about the service, the procession and the reception. It also features exclusive photos and videos, including links to official Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Youtube accounts as well as a virtual tour of Buckingham Palace.

For such a significant and historic event, social media has cemented its place in our lives and it’ll be interesting to see what impact this event would have on social media usage for future weddings.

Will the royal wedding help increase people’s hunger for social media weddings? Will you use social media for your wedding? If you’re already married, do you wish you used social media?

President Jonathan may be described as a ‘Facebook President‘, or perhaps, ‘the man that brought Facebook to Nigeria’, as one of his ministers gaffed last year, but would this guarantee his winning the 2011 Presidential polls this April.

A recent article on FastCompany suggested that perhaps African leaders should avoid Facebook, citing a new statistical analysis that indicates that the more Facebook fans an African politician has, the more likely they are to be forced out of power.

At the time of writing this, President Jonathan has over 500,000 fans on Facebook, which makes him Africa’s most popular leader on any social media site.

But Ethan Zuckerman, a researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, asserted that having more followers on Facebook was directly proportional to regime instability, according to FastCompany.

My Thoughts

While Zuckerman’s analysis may be correct given the ousting of the Egyptian President, we should not forget that there were serious protests and unrests in each of these countries during which their Facebook pages saw increased activity, including ‘likes’ and ‘comments’. (Oh, make that ‘dislikes’, even though Facebook doesn’t have a ‘dislike’ button).

On the other hand, President Jonathan gained more than 250,000 Facebook ‘likes’ on his official page in the first five months and has been described as the favourite to win the April Presidential polls.

So would Jonathan be ‘unliked’ on election day? That is very unlikely! In fact, the President has gotten much more ‘love’ from the nollywood and entertainment industry more than any other Presidential candidate. Thanks to celebrity endorsements from D’banj et al.

In a few weeks when Nigeria decides who their next President would be, I’m guessing that they would prove Zuckerman’s stats and analysis very wrong.

What are your thoughts? Will President Jonathan be ‘unliked’ at the April polls?

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Facebook is seeking a Growth Manager who is obsessed with technology, social media and business strategy.

The ideal candidate will have experience in the consumer Internet and mobile space in Africa, particularly in Nigeria, an extensive network of contacts in the space and a heavy emphasis on marketing, strategic analysis, product management and is a great executor who can make things happen.

The Growth Managers at Facebook are responsible for supporting the execution of growth initiatives, identifying growth opportunities that help with the distribution of the Facebook brand online and offline and adding value to the Facebook user experience.

The position is a 6 to 11 months contract position based in Lagos, Nigeria.

If you are passionate about making Facebook the best global communication platform, and interested in this position apply now (login required).

While Facebook prefers you login and apply via their online application, you can also email your resume to careers+201408883213963@facebook.com to apply for this position.

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Today, Nigeria’s first-ever youth -focused, youth-driven presidential debate spotlighting priority issues for young Nigerians will hold at the Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre, Abuja.

The ‘WhatAboutUs?’ debate would be a direct conversation with the Nigerian youth, inviting presidential candidates to answer questions posed by young Nigerians, at home and abroad, via social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, SMS, email and video diaries.

It’s been said that young Nigerians represent 70% of Nigeria’s population, yet their concerns and issues are not present on the national agenda or current political campaigns.

Even last week’s presidential debate aired live on NN24 did little or nothing to address the most important concern of every young Nigerian – UNEMPLOYMENT.

At the moment, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu (ACN), Chief Dele Momodu (NCP), Professor Pat Utomi (SDMP), and Governor Ibrahim Shekarau (ANPP) have confirmed their participation, while Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (CPC), President Goodluck Jonathan (PDP), and Reverend Chris Okotie (FDP) have declined the invitation to attend the youth-focused debate.

The debate will be simulcast live at 7pm on local television station, Channels TV and also online on Youtube.

In addition, viewers everywhere will be asked to chime in using #whataboutus on Google Moderator, a unique platform which empowers communities to connect and share comments, questions, and analysis.

The debate will also be rebroadcast on the WhatAboutUs website following the event.

The “What About Us?” Campaign is a collaborative effort from Enough is Enough Nigeria, Vote or Quench, Sleeves Up, StandUP Naija and several other youth advocacy groups and activists.

Who in your opinion will win the WhatAboutUs debate?