Llamas on the loose, a now-famous dress that's white and gold... or is it black and blue? The last week in social media has been, how shall I put this, quirky. That might be an understatement.
Let's take a look at what caught the attention of the social media world this week.
The Dress that Divided the World
I still don't understand how anyone sees black and blue, the dress is clearly white and gold.
When Cates Holderness posted her article on BuzzFeed asking for readers to settle a debate on the colors of the dress, the Internet almost broke. The hashtag trended for days and people continued to discuss and debate over the weekend what the colors really are.
At Brandwatch, we began tracking mentions on the night of February 26 and by the afternoon on Friday, February 27 we had seen more than 1.5 million mentions. Of a dress! It wasn't even photographed well, or draped over a famous person.
Celebrities like Taylor Swift, Mindy Kaling, Kim Kardashian, and many others even got in on the action, not to mention the brands that jumped on the bandwagon to weigh in on the debate.
Of note, this graph represents GMT timezone
The top hashtags we saw of the dress included #TheDress (566,600+ mentions), #whiteandgold (150,300+mentions), #blueandblack (56,600+ mentions), and #blackandblue (54,900+ mentions).
As with any social media trend, brands quickly noticed and jumped into the conversation. Some of the top tweets we saw came from Coca-Cola, who suggested that the dress would look better in red and white; DSW could care less about the dress, it's the shoes that matter to them; Jim Beam reminded everyone that their label is white, and the bourbon is gold; Sephora let their customers know they don't have to choose sides; and Lego found an option for everyone.
Since our office couldn't agree on what the colors were, we took a 30% sampling of the 1.5 million mentions to see which color combo was most popular on Twitter. Overall, it looks like more people think the dress is black and blue rather than white and gold.
-
Black and blue: 52%
-
White and gold: 45%
-
Both: 4%
We also shared data with CBC News and The Drum around this global divider.
One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Seuss Fish
Book fairs. Green Eggs and Ham. Oh the places we will go, when we read.
This Monday was Read Across America Day, also known as Dr. Seuss Day. At Brandwatch, we saw more than 30,000 mentions of people socially celebrating, including the Lakers Community, Reading Rainbow, and Scholastic.
A majority of mentions came from teachers (31%), followed by artists, executives, and journalists. Women (66%) also discussed Dr. Seuss day more than men (34%).
California (1,800+ mentions), Texas (1,000+ mentions), and New York (750+ mentions) led the conversations.
Wireless charging furniture? Gimme!
This week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, IKEA revealed a new range of furniture that will, wait for it, wirelessly charge (some) mobile devices. It's a millennial's dream come true!
This week, we saw nearly 40,000 mentions of this Jetsons-esque futuristic furniture. People are very excited to potentially be getting rid of their cable mess, especially since IKEA will also offer a wireless charging pad that can be purchased separately. Sign me up.
The collection will include tables, desks, and lamps, all of which have wireless charging pads in them, however, the furniture itself will need to be connected to a power source. The collection will hit IKEA shelves in Europe and North America on April 15 (hello tax return!), followed by a global rollout later this year.
Here a Meerkat, there a Meerkat, everywhere is Meerkat
As TechCrunch described it, Meerkat is the livestreaming app that Twitter should have built. Our Brandwatch Evangelist, Azeem Azhar, has been really impressed by Meerkat. Check out his thoughts on LinkedIn.
In the past week, we have seen more than 27,000 mentions of the app, with the biggest spike in mentions between March 1st and 2nd after TechCrunch and Mashable began to Tweet about the app.
We saw influencers like Vayner Media CEO Gary Vaynerchuk using the app, as well as many members of the tech media, those lucky early adopters! It will be interesting to see how Meerkat's popularity grows or declines in the next few months. And how the general consumer public takes to it.
In like a lion, out like a lamb?
March is beating the Northeast with some more snow, but with SXSW, the MTV Movie Awards, and Social Media Marketing World around the corner, things on social are definitely starting to heat up.
Interested in learning more about social listening and data or have a question for Brandwatch? Visit us here or email me [email protected]!