Judges Matter results Apr – Oct 2019

About Judges Matter

Judges Matter is a loose coalition of civil society organisations who believe in the importance of judges. Judges Matter focuses on the appointments process for judges in South Africa. Judges Matter’s aim is to track and illustrate the appointment process by attending the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interviews of judicial candidates and live streaming as well as live tweeting the interviews as they happen. Judges Matter reports on the appointments made and provides transcripts of the interviews. In addition profiles of all of the candidates are loaded on the website and articles are written throughout the year about issues relating to the judiciary and the JSC.

The Judges Matter social media platforms are a key method to communicating with and engaging this community. The main platforms are Facebook and Twitter, both of which are used to direct the audience to the website where the main information is housed. The Facebook page currently has 43 370 fans and has over 22 800 engagements with the content on a monthly basis. (Average engagement per month). The Judges Matter Twitter account has 10 175 followers and is seen as an important news source about the judiciary with a number of influential journalists following the page and retweeting the content.

Strategy and themes

The main themes for Judges Matter content is to create awareness about Judges Matter, share information about the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) interviews, share information about the judicial candidates and to continue to be an authority on matters relating to judges in South Africa.

• The first Judges Matter social media campaign took place in October 2015.
• The Judges Matter website was launched in March 2016.
• Eight further social media campaigns were run for the JSC interviews in April and October 2016, April and October 2017, April and October 2018, and April and October 2019.
• The Judges Matter social media platforms have also seen significant growth and continued engagement in-between the JSC interview periods from May to September and November to March each year.

April – October results

This report is for the growth in numbers and stats from 1 April 2019 until 31 October 2019 and includes highlights from the JSC interviews in October 2019.

• The Judges Matter Facebook page has grown by 5 600 fans over this six month period and currently has 43 370 fans, as of the 20 November 2019.
• The Judges Matter Twitter account has grown steadily and currently has 10 175 followers, as of 20 November 2019. The Twitter account has grown by 2 283 followers over the past six months.
• The highest impressions (opportunities to see) and engagement on Twitter was as a result of the activity and campaigns in October 2019 with 549 100 impressions in that month.
• The highest impressions (opportunities to see) in one day on Twitter was on Tuesday 8 October with 86 850 impressions on that day.
• The Judges Matter website went live on the 14 March 2016. Between the 1 April 2019 and the 31 October 2019 there have been 58 555 visitors to the website. This means that there is an average of 8 365 people visiting the website every month.
• Reach and engagement across both Facebook and Twitter in October 2019 was excellent. In addition to the JSC interviews campaign reach and engagement for the month were boosted by:
  •  Additional content being added for the Hlophe Tribunal campaign and the Magistrates Commission campaign.
  • Additional budget being spent in the month. More ad budget is allocated to the month of October 2019 for the JSC interviews and additional budget was found to boost the content for the Hlophe Tribunal and Magistrates Commission.

• Fans continue to respond well to news articles relating to the judiciary that are posted on social media. Organic reach and engagement on social platforms are increased by the engagement with these news articles.

Live stream and YouTube:

• For the past four years Judges Matter has live streamed all of the JSC interviews on the website. The live stream is incredibly successful and very popular with the Judges Matter audience with an average of 35 714 unique views of the live stream in 2019.
• During the week of the April 2019 JSC interviews the live stream page on the Judges Matter website received 8 441 page views. (This is a significant increase in page views in comparison to previous rounds. This can be attributed to the fact that this round of interviews included interviews for the Constitutional Court.)
• During the week of the October 2019 JSC interviews the live stream page on the Judges Matter website received 13 039 page views. (This is a significant increase in page views in comparison to previous rounds and an excellent result. It could be attributed in part to the interviews running over four days and not being cut short as has happened in pervious rounds.)
• In total the October 2019 JSC interviews live stream had 27 273 views (on the website and Facebook combined). The increase in views can be attributed to having the live stream on Facebook. Almost 19 000 views of the live stream were on the Facebook platform.
• During the week of the October 2019 JSC interviews people who viewed the live stream on the Judges Matter website spent an average of 15 minutes watching the live stream. This high average watch time shows that there is a dedicated audience who is invested in the JSC proceedings.
• Videos from the past six rounds of JSC interviews have been uploaded to the Judges Matter YouTube channel which currently has 244 videos loaded and 6 031 subscribers.
• Between the April 2016 and October 2019 the videos on YouTube have been viewed 1 687 238 times.

The most viewed video is the JSC interview with Judge N F Kgomo which has received 398 523 views.

To read the full report download it here.

The management of the social media and digital marketing for Judges Matter is run by Edge Digital.