He's one of the most popular (and controversial!) people on Mzansi Twitter and now he's on ZAlebs.com to tell us how he does it: say hello to Azola Mlota.
Some people know him for his funny conversations on social media, some people know him for throwing shade; but most of us know him for his viral hashtag #UmjoloWithAzola. The hashtag is for anybody who is single but is looking for love and it's incredibly easy to use. You simply post a picture of yourself and use the hashtags and then hope that someone decent makes their way into your DMs.
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It sounds simple enough but the hashtag, which trends without fail every weekend, has taken the country by storm and has seen Azola transforming himself into just another member of black Twitter into an unstoppable influence in the South African social media game.
I got the opportunity to speak to the young man from the Eastern Cape and the first thing I wanted to know is: who is Azola Mlota?
"Well Azola was born from Eastern Cape in a small place called Elliot. I'm just an ordinary person filled with humour by nature. I work as a PR specialist for events which happen annually. I have a company, Mlota PR promos where we do PR and also promote events through online platforms. I'm a person who's all about the public and the internet."
Now that I knew him a bit better I decided to cut straight to the chase and talk about his now famous (or infamous if you haven't found love yet) hashtag. The man appears to post about relationships a lot so I decided to quiz him on how he founded #UmjoloWithAzola. He said:
"Judging from the response of people on my timeline about anything I post, people keep on sending me messages asking why I don't start being a cupid and hooking people up since most of the time I tweet about relationships etc. So I saw that people were hungry for this and I decided why not? And I gave it a chance last year October. I was amazed at how the people participated. From that day I made sure that my hashtag trends every weekend. What's amazing is that I dont even announce its time on Sunday, when people wake up they just participate and it hits the trending lists in South Africa."
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The success of the hashtag can definitely not be questioned but I wanted to find out more about its effectiveness. Has anybody found love from this hashtag? I was surprised to learn that the answer was:
"Yes! There are many success stories of people who some came to my dm just to say thank u buti for hooking me up, now we are in a serious relationship with my partner, we are even living together."
And when I pushed him to answer if he had ever participated in the hashtag, I was thoroughly impressed with the integrity he showed in his answer:
"[Laughs] I never participate on the tag because I'm the owner of the tag and the fact that I have someone in my life lol."
Have you ever taken part in #UmjoloWithAzola? What has your luck been like so far?
