Yesterday, up to 10 million Kenyans (70% of registered voters) went to the polls to vote for a new president. After months of debates and campaigning, relative online interest in the 2013 elections was just as strong as voter turnout. Tens of thousands of Kenyans, along with many observers from the international community, followed presidential election happenings on social media. Some feared violence, but most were simply excited to participate in such an empowering day.

On March 4th, 2013, six key Twitter hashtags – led by #kenyadecides – were used at least 76,000 times. Tens of thousands of additional tweets included no hashtag. For a while, the event was trending worldwide on Twitter.

Popular Twitter hashtags from the day, with number of mentions:

1. #kenyadecides: 55,576
2. #kenya: 14,941
3. #kepolls2013: 2,617
4. #keelections2013: 2,270
5. #kenyaelection: 539
6. #kenyavotes: 386

An infographic generated by data visualization site Visual.ly shows the massive spike in #kenyadecides tweets on election day:

{visual.ly}

Over the previous 30 days, these tags were used in nearly 200,000 tweets, with #kenya appearing nearly 65,000 times. The cumulative volume of activity on Twitter suggests a record level of social media interaction for an African election. The level of engagement is much higher than in 2007. Plus, social media activity already appears more comm than during Nigeria’s 2011 presidential elections. An estimated 70,000 people posted contents online during Nigeria’s 2011 polls. Kenyans already seem to have posted more content – this despite having one-quarter the population of Nigeria.