Tag Archives: cadel evans

Matthew Mitcham most influential Olympian on Twitter

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Diver Matthew Mitcham is the most influential Australian Olympian on Twitter, beating out high profile swimmers, basketballers and cyclists in the engagement stakes.

While Mitcham ranked well behind cyclist Cadel Evans and swimmer Stephanie Rice for number of followers, his influence score was the highest according to Edelman Public Relations’ TweetLevel research, which analyses levels of popularity, engagement and trust.

Mitcham’s frequent engagement with followers through retweets and replies, and regular tweeting, gave him an engagement score of 83.8. Swimmer Libby Tricket and basketballer Patrick Mills were also able to generate high levels of influence among their follower bases.

According to Matthew Gain, Director of Brand and Digital Marketing at Edelman, “Sheer follower numbers alone are not the only indication of an individual’s influence on Twitter, the rate of engagement with your followers and how many RTs you generate all impact your influence.”

Olympians competing in swimming and diving dominated the top 20 spots, making up 45% of the most influential users. Three Australian basketball exports occupied a spot in the top 10 thanks to their high profiles in the US.

Image credit: Phillip Myers

Planking and the census the viral hits of Facebook in 2011

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The social barometer that is Facebook has released its most talked about topics for 2011.

‘Facebook Memology’ “takes the pulse of the global community by unearthing the most popular topics and cultural trends – or memes – emerging on Facebook.”

The data shows the top ten Facebook status trends for 2011 by key countries and globally, as well as fastest growing Pages (from musician and actor categories) and most popular media on a global level. Most talked about brands and most successful brand Pages were not made available by Facebook. The most shared items of the year globally were published on Mashable, but unavailable at a local level.

Planking, where people lie face down in unusual locations, was the runaway viral success (for society? – Ed) in Australia for the year, topping the Facebook meme list and ranking third amongst ‘what is…’ searches on Google’s most searched queries for 2011.

Status updates mentioning planking exploded in May. According to Facebook, that happened after Max Key, the son of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, posted a Facebook photo of himself planking in the family lounge with his father in the background. The stickiness of the phenomenon appears to have originated from a well connected source.

The campaign for the 2011 Australian census also registered as a success, elevating the event into third place on the meme list. Central to the engagement campaign around the survey was ‘Spotlight’, an interactive tool that published a personalised infographic to the user’s Facebook wall.

Top global topics on Facebook

Events in the UK and US had the greatest influence on the global memology. The most talked about event of the year was the death of Osama bin Laden, the biggest sports event was the Super Bowl and the biggest product launch for 2011 (and all time) was for video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

Charlie Sheen captured people’s attention in March, when his trademark ‘winning’, ‘tiger blood’ and ‘goddesses’ memes took off.

The marriage of Kate Middleton and Prince William dominated the conversation in April, with mentions of the phrase ‘Royal Wedding’ shooting up nearly 600-fold in the days running up to their wedding day.

And the year was also marked by outpourings of sadness and memories after the deaths of Amy Winehouse in July and Steve Jobs in October.

 

Homepage image courtesy of Budgetplaces, via Flickr