These Are the People, Topics and Hashtags That Made Twitter Tick in 2015 Viewed as a collective, the priorities of the Twitterverse can sometimes seem a little bizarre.
By Geoff Weiss
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Jobs are top of mind for Twitter users today -- but nowhere near as significant, it turns out, as untimely in-fighting between members of British boy bands.
According to the 2015 Year on Twitter, an annual wrap-up about the social network's biggest trending topics, #jobs (not the movie) was the most hashtagged term in the news category. The most trending key words in the tech category included #iPad, #SoundCloud, #Android and #Periscope. And the year's most popular emoji was a cry-laughing smiley face.
However, in a clear sign of Twitter's most rabid demographic, the most retweeted message of the year occurred last March, when Harry Styles hazily alluded to bandmate Zayn Malik's departure from One Direction. "All the love always," he wrote in a missive that has been retweeted roughly 724,000 times -- trumping President Obama's reaction to the legalization of gay marriage (448,000 retweets) and an inspirational adage care of Kanye West: "Please: Do everything you possibly can in one lifetime" (309,500 retweets.)
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Indeed, the Year in Review provides a slightly disjointed mixture of topics, as the weighty commingles with the stunningly inane. While the Twittersphere collectively grieved after the Paris massacre last month, and the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag (which was tweeted 9 million times) gave rise to a social movement, people also lost their minds over The Dress (team #BlueandBlack or #WhiteandGold?), which spawned more than 4.4 million tweets last February.
Other human interest stories, including 14-year-old Texas clockmaker Ahmed Mohammed (more than 370,000 tweets) and the epic Pluto flyby (roughly 1 million tweets), captivated our nation in 2015. And when it comes to new Twitter users, Caitlyn Jenner became the fastest figure to reach 1 million followers when she announced her transition last June, earning her a Guinness World Record.
For a closer look at the topics and users that made Twitter tick in 2015, as well as some hashtags to perhaps synergize with your brand's own social endeavors, check out the Year in Review right here.
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