We've all got BBQs, beaches, and fireworks on the brain, but let's take some time to take a bite out of the social data around trending news stories this week before we officially hit the shores.
And the backyards.
NY Jailbirds Get Caught; Leads to Social Media Surge
The rural communities of Upstate New York took a collective sigh of relief as the two escaped inmates from Clinton Correctional Facility were apprehended this past weekend.
The three-week-long manhunt has spawned nearly 196, 000 online mentions with the majority occurring as news of the inmates capture spread like wildfire. Mentions jumped to over 30K on Friday (nearly 10 times greater than the previous day), as the public reacted to authorities altercation with Richard Matt, but peak mentions in the entire conversation came as David Sweat was captured on Sunday with over 36K mentions.
Major players within the overall conversation included the two escaped inmates, obviously, and Governor Cuomo, but alleged accomplice Joyce Mitchell holds the largest share of the conversation, claiming the top associated hashtag.
#FreeBree Reaches Rare Air
Bree Newsome took matters upon herself to remove the Confederate Flag over South Carolina. Upon coming back to the ground, she found herself under arrest, but that didn't stop her supporters from sounding off on social.
The #FreeBree hashtag took off and accumulated around 111K mentions with fives time more positive social mentions than negative. Social views can be seen within the topic cloud comparing Newsome to Rosa Parks and superheroes.
The Donald and the NBC
There aren't enough queries to track all the conversations Donald Trump has been in the past couple weeks. Actually, there are, but who wants to look at Donald Trump data all day? For the purpose of this post we took a look at Trump getting canned by NBC.
The conversation tallied nearly 53K mentions online, and while sentiment around this conversation is near identical, people couldn't resist the opportunity to poke fun at the newly announced candidate.
The "You're Fired" quote, made famous by Trump himself on NBC's The Apprentice, became one of the top hashtags within this conversation as Twitter authors can't resist a good pun, laden with irony. #DumpTrump also appeared to be a top hashtag, painting a pretty clear picture of people's thoughts.
There will surely be more discussions with Trump to come. Formally running for the US presidency has a habit of amplifying conversations.
525,600 Minutesssss... Plus One Second!
We've always seemed to have an issue with time. There is either too much, or not enough, but in an effort to keep things sorted the powers that be declared that today we'll get an extra second.
One second; a leap second, and while you might think it's insignificant people are tweeting about it. The #LeapSecond hashtag has already accumulated more than 107K mentions.
People are expressing both excitement and apprehension as they debate what to do with their extra time, or if the additional tick will disrupt online networks.
People are looking to Nasa and respected news outlets for up-to-date information as you can see from the top mentioned tweeters.
#AskELJames
E.L. James, the author of the Fifty Shades "books," finds herself in the middle of the latest installment of "Your Twitter Q&A Is A Huge Mistake." This week the author held a Q&A using the hashtag #AskELJames, and promptly rued the day Twitter was conceptualized.
The hashtag was used nearly 40K times, with women leading the conversation at 66% of unique authorship.
People used the Q&A to express their thoughts on James' books either through humor, or blatant statements. The topic cloud below shows that people brought domestic abuse and abusive relationship to the forefront of the conversation. People also compared the books' protagonist to Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones. You can even see where tweeters called out the Q&A as going 'horribly wrong'.
Another cautionary tale of how Twitter Q&As can either be a great way of interacting with your audience, or being confronted by them.
Say it Ain't So, Bennifer!
The conversation around the Bennifer breakup has already garnered over 34K online mentions with 61% of unique Twitter authors being female.
There are many feelings surrounding this latest split, from 'love is dead' to simply 'NOOOO' as you can see from these prominent conversation hashtags and topics.
It's good to know that when everything feels upside down, you can always turn to the internet.
Data Coming!
Next week we'll be tracking Shark Week and see how the Fourth of July played out on social (which city had the best fireworks according to social media, anyone?)
Happy Fourth of July weekend social media world!
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