Sunday Times engagement report
@SundayTimesZA - 912K followers on X
Measured over 51 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on August 21, 2026.
Engagement
A typical post picks up 2 interactions against 912K followers, an engagement rate of 0%. Measured over 51 original posts, its engagement rate beats 3% of 1,003 tracked accounts of a similar size. That is a reason to look at how the audience behaves - reply depth, saves, whether the followers are recent - rather than a conclusion about it on its own. Posts are seen about 1.7K times each, and 0.121% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 0.181% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 2 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 7% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 13:00 UTC, and Thursday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 51 posts sampled, 18% carry an image or video, 16% are part of a thread and 80% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 76 interactions, about 38x its own typical post.
Measured over 51 original posts from a 30-day window, last computed on August 21, 2026.
Compared with accounts its own size
Sunday Times's engagement rate beats 3% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (1,003 accounts, accounts of similar size (decile 5 of 10)). A percentile is spread evenly by construction, so 50 really is the middle of that group and 90 really is its top tenth.
On engagement per impression rather than per follower it beats 8% of the same group. When those two numbers disagree, the gap is about how far its posts travel rather than how people react to them.
Where this sits in the catalog
At under 0.001%, Sunday Times sits below the 10th percentile of the 10,985 accounts in this comparison. That places it in the bottom 25% band, which runs below 0.007%.
Show the percentile table
| Percentile | Engagement rate |
|---|---|
| 10th percentile | 0.001% |
| 25th percentile | 0.007% |
| 50th percentile | 0.05% |
| 75th percentile | 0.331% |
| 90th percentile | 2.50% |
| 99th percentile | 332.2% |
This ruler is the whole measured catalog, not a size-matched group: it shows where the raw rate falls across every account we can measure, all of which are large. For a like-for-like comparison, read the size-band percentile above instead. See how the bands are built
Posting timing
This account posts most often around 13:00 UTC, and Thursday is its busiest day of the week. The bars below are the catalog-wide pattern, with this account's own busiest slot marked. They do not show how this account performs at each hour: we keep one aggregate per account, not one per hour, so that measurement does not exist in our data.
Show engagement by hour posted, utc as a table
| Hour (UTC) | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00 UTC | 0% | 15K |
| 01:00 UTC | +4% | 15K |
| 02:00 UTC | -1% | 14K |
| 03:00 UTC | -2% | 15K |
| 04:00 UTC | -5% | 12K |
| 05:00 UTC | -5% | 12K |
| 06:00 UTC | -7% | 13K |
| 07:00 UTC | -6% | 14K |
| 08:00 UTC | -7% | 17K |
| 09:00 UTC | -2% | 19K |
| 10:00 UTC | -2% | 20K |
| 11:00 UTC | -2% | 22K |
| 12:00 UTC | -1% | 24K |
| 13:00 UTC | +1% | 27K |
| 14:00 UTC | -2% | 29K |
| 15:00 UTC | -1% | 30K |
| 16:00 UTC | -1% | 30K |
| 17:00 UTC | -1% | 28K |
| 18:00 UTC | +1% | 25K |
| 19:00 UTC | 0% | 24K |
| 20:00 UTC | 0% | 22K |
| 21:00 UTC | +1% | 19K |
| 22:00 UTC | +1% | 17K |
| 23:00 UTC | +1% | 15K |
Show engagement by day of week as a table
| Day | Vs author median | Posts |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | +8% | 59K |
| Monday | +8% | 72K |
| Tuesday | +1% | 94K |
| Wednesday | -4% | 78K |
| Thursday | -3% | 71K |
| Friday | -5% | 73K |
| Saturday | +2% | 64K |
Formats this account uses
Its own posting mix on the left, and what each of those formats does across every account we track on the right. Only formats where the effect clears our publish test appear here, so an empty row is a format we could not measure rather than one that does nothing.
| Format | This account | Catalog effect | 95% interval | Accounts behind it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Image or video | 18% of posts | +79% | +73% to +85% | 5.8K |
| Outbound link | 80% of posts | -49% | -50% to -47% | 6.1K |
| Typical length | - | -7% | -8% to -5% | 9.0K |
- 18% of this account's sampled posts carry an image or video. Across the catalog, posts with an image or video run 79% above the same accounts' other posts.
- 80% of its posts carry a link off X. Across the catalog, posts with an outbound link run 49% below the same accounts' other posts, so a large share of this account's output sits in the weakest bucket we measure.
- Its average post runs 156 characters, which falls in the 80 - 180 characters band. Across the catalog, posts of 80 to 180 characters run 7% below the same accounts' other posts.
These are catalog-wide differences applied to this account's own posting mix, not a measurement of how each format performs for this account specifically. We keep one median per account, not one per format per account, so the second thing is not something this data can tell you.
Best tweets
- Aug 20, 202638x their median
On July 5 we published a social media poster with the following words, “Solly Msimanga tells how former DA leader courted Tshwane for government work during ‘uncomfortable’ meeting", which implied that former Tshwane mayor and current Democratic Alliance federal chairperson Solly Msimanga had claimed that former DA leader Tony Leon had solicited business from Msimanga for the former’s communication company. The association of Msimanga’s name with the claim was inaccurate, as the claim was made by a former Tshwane official, who has also deposed an affidavit to that effect to the public protector. We regret the error, which has since been corrected, and apologise unreservedly to Msimanga
- Aug 20, 202632x their median
Xhakaza’s removal of Dlabathi as Ekurhuleni finance MMC was reversed after an urgent meeting of ANC provincial leaders. 🔗 Link in comments https://t.co/EH6ED6ARmq
- Aug 21, 202631x their median
Affidavit reveals rift between politically linked businessmen as multimillion-rand dispute unfolds https://t.co/YIPh4iDih7
- Aug 21, 202612x their median
The relationship between politically connected businessmen Ze Nxumalo and Steve Motsumi has taken a dramatic turn. 🔗 Link in comments. https://t.co/AZN9sqe6iy
- Aug 20, 202612x their median
Habib was politically active during the 1980s and has long situated himself within South Africa’s liberation tradition. The interesting question is what became of those convictions when he acquired institutional power, asks Ziyad Motala. https://t.co/EF6tdud5BZ
- Aug 20, 20264.5x their median
Volkswagen Group Africa’s (VWGA) Kariega plant built a total of 17,009 vehicles in July — a new record for the number of vehicles built in one month at the Eastern Cape production facilities. https://t.co/fuhYTTFP0K
- Aug 21, 20264.0x their median
Questions swirl over expunged convictions and links to vehicle theft syndicate. 🔗 Link in comments. https://t.co/M5QTdvvA0A
- Aug 21, 20263.5x their median
Questions swirl over expunged convictions and links to vehicle theft syndicate https://t.co/zTv04erGmk
- Aug 21, 20263.5x their median
March and March leader is still talking about South Africa as a single unit, but once you start entertaining segregated universities, it’s not a leap to segregated schools and then states, writes Tom Eaton https://t.co/ZFxkTl12P8
- Aug 21, 20263.0x their median
Partnership expands to target over 3% annual economic growth with focus on mining, tourism, infrastructure and agriculture. https://t.co/Zf1XgfIKRE
Ranked by total interactions across everything we have tracked for this account, which is a longer history than the 30-day window the rates above use. The multiple compares each post to this account's own median.
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Reading these numbers
A typical post picks up 2 interactions against 912K followers, an engagement rate of 0%. Measured over 51 original posts, its engagement rate beats 3% of 1,003 tracked accounts of a similar size. That is a reason to look at how the audience behaves - reply depth, saves, whether the followers are recent - rather than a conclusion about it on its own. Posts are seen about 1.7K times each, and 0.121% of those impressions turn into an interaction. That is about 0.181% of the follower count, which is the gap between an audience on paper and an audience in a timeline. Posting runs at about 2 posts a day over the last 30 days, though only 7% of days saw any activity at all. Most posts go out around 13:00 UTC, and Thursday is the busiest day of the week. Of the 51 posts sampled, 18% carry an image or video, 16% are part of a thread and 80% link out. The account's strongest tracked post pulled 76 interactions, about 38x its own typical post.
- What is Sunday Times's engagement rate on X?
- Sunday Times (@SundayTimesZA) has an engagement rate of 0%, based on the median interactions across 51 original posts from the last 30 days against 911,642 followers. Replies, reposts and quote-posts of other people are excluded from that sample.
- Is that a good engagement rate?
- At under 0.001%, Sunday Times sits below the 10th percentile of the 10,985 accounts in this comparison. Those comparison accounts are all large ones, because our scanning cadence is weighted towards big accounts, so this is a ranking among peers of similar scale rather than a ranking across X.
- Does @SundayTimesZA have real engagement?
- Its engagement rate beats 3% of the tracked X accounts closest to it in follower count (1,003 accounts), which puts it in the bottom 10% for its size group. Ranking inside a size band matters because engagement rate falls as accounts grow, so a raw rate would mostly re-measure the follower count. It is a starting point for a look at follower quality, not a verdict on it.
- When does @SundayTimesZA post?
- Most posts go out around 13:00 UTC, and Thursday is its busiest day, at roughly 1.97 posts per day across the measured window.