RIsE Mzansi
How a new political party reached millions of South Africans
Gaopalelwe Phalaetsile
Gaopalelwe Phalaetsile is a journalist turned digital communications expert, specializing in social media content creation and management. For the past decade she has founded and led various progressive organizations and initiatives in South Africa and currently leads the digital team for South Africa’s newest progressive political party – RISE Mzansi.
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Founded by ordinary South Africans in 2023, RISE Mzansi was nonetheless ready to contest South Africa’s 7th general election just a year later in May 2024.
RISE Mzansi’s messages were captured in our election campaign slogans:
#WeNeedNewLeaders
– South Africa desperately needs capable leaders committed to building a safe, prosperous, equal, and united country. And it needs political organizations with the ability to inspire citizens to take action and contribute to meaningful change. RISE Mzansi’s core policies were shaped directly by our supporters.
#2024IsOur1994
– the choices which South Africans make now are no less important for our future than the choices we made in the historic 1994 vote, when universal suffrage was introduced and Nelson Mandela became president.
I started work as RISE Mzansi’s social media manager in September 2023, eight months before the election, and immediately began assembling a digital team. Given our limited budget, we were only able to hire two photographers/videographers, one graphic designer, two social media coordinators, and one internal communications coordinator to manage our WhatsApp groups.
With candidates standing across the country, we needed a digital presence in each of South Africa’s nine provinces. Our goal was to increase visibility, showcase our campaign activities, and foster a sense of community by connecting with supporters and encouraging them to advocate for us online.
Throughout the election campaign, we were the only political party consistently active on six social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp. While it was obviously a constant challenge to tailor content for each platform, this approach enabled us to engage with different audiences and make it easier for people to discover us and follow our campaign.
With over 10 years of newsroom experience, I was aware that South African politicians often put themselves at the center of campaigns. As a new and relatively unknown party, our mission was to help people get to know our leaders – but not to the point where they became the story. More and more, we tried to show our leaders in real-time, engaging with communities and in activities that highlighted our priorities as a party and emphasized our commitment to care and collaboration.
X became our primary platform for sharing these real-time updates. It’s fair to say we became slightly obsessed with trending on X, both to increase our visibility and amplify our message. We focused on key campaign drivers and used our hashtags to generate buzz (#2024IsOur1994 and #WeNeedNewLeaders). Although it's hard to know exactly how many posts are needed to trend, it quickly became clear that engagement levels have a significant influence on visibility.
I rejected the idea of paying influencers, on the basis that it would harm our reputation for authenticity. Instead, a group of 20 volunteers (we referred to as our ‘warriors’) collaborated weekly to review metrics, brainstorm ideas, and tackle negative propaganda. We also recognized the need to complement our organic approach with paid advertising on social media (especially in the final weeks of the campaign), targeting different demographics and regions with tailored messages. For example, one of our key policy commitments was improving support for single mothers; we created straightforward adverts highlighting five political initiatives designed to deliver on this commitment and ensured our Google, YouTube, and Meta ads specifically targeted this demographic.
We also used a social listening tool from Acumen Media to track engagement, sentiment, and learn more about who our online supporters were. Insights from the tool encouraged us to reinforce our family-oriented approach and provided us with valuable information on our supporters’ interests, enabling us to adapt our messaging accordingly.
I believe we were justifiably proud when our hashtags featured in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) 2024 X Election Overview, contributing to an election reach of 11 billion impressions and 1 million mentions. News of RISE Mzansi – and our mission to create new political opportunities for South Africans – reached millions of people online. We may be a young party, but we are already represented in parliament and in the Gauteng provincial legislature – and confident this is just the start of our journey.
