Just one week in and 2015 is proving to be a volatile year for news and social media-attention grabbing headlines.
Freedoms of both press and speech have been threatened around the world, illustrated through a deadly terrorist attack in Paris and a knee-jerk (and immature) reaction by a US congressman to a press mention.
The end all be all of the year's techie fests just wrapped, as the week-long International Consumer Electronics Show comes to an end. Brandwatch partnered with global digital agency Text100 and consumer survey firm RedShift to create a CES influence index
A friend and freelancer for ESPN magazine got in touch with our team at Brandwatch in his quest to use social listening and analysis to answer the age old question: why do so many people hate Nickelback. But does the social data prove they are the most-hated band?
We look at these news stories and more.
On your mark, get set, let's data.
Delauter's Dilemma: A lesson in journalism
We were intrigued by the story of one Maryland councilman, Kirby Delauter. He declared that the press needs his permission to use his name, which in and of itself is... interesting. And completely ridiculous from any sort of journalistic standpoint.
This profound declaration came after a story appeared in the Frederick News-Post on Jan. 3. The article in questions was about the assignment and availability of parking spaces to county council members. Delauter was angry with reporter Bethany Rodgers, and took to his Facebook page to say, "shame on Bethany Rodgers for an unauthorized use of my name and my reference in her article today."
The story has received quite a bit of attention in the media and on social channels, not to mention that this freedom of press/freedom of speech issue hit the news circuit around the same time as the devastating and violent terrorist attack on the editorial staff of Paris satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this week.
Many responses to Delauter's unwarranted anger have been sarcastic and we have seen mentions of the first amendment in the social media conversation. But in the Frederick News-Post's cheeky editorial column in response to Delauter's threats, a fun easter egg is hidden - you'll do a double-take when you pay attention to the first letter in each paragraph.
We have seen more than 18,000 mentions of Delauter in the past week relating to this story.
Top Hashtags
The most popular hashtag, which became a trending topic, has been #kirbydelauter with more than 13,700 tweets and retweets. Other top hashtags include #Journalism, #FirstAmendment, and #TeamBethany.
We also saw mentions of the Streisand Effect, which is the unintended consequence of gaining publicity by trying to have it censored. The term is named after Barbra Streisand who in 2003 tried to suppress images of her Malibu home.
Location
Unsurprisingly, we have seen the most mentions come from Maryland, the councilman's home state.
Most Mentioned Topics
The Mecca of Tech: CES 2015
It's Christmas in tech-land, as thousands of companies descended upon Sin City this week to showcase their latest and greatest tech offerings.
We partnered with Text100, who used Brandwatch to monitor online news, Twitter, Facebook and discussion forums between January 5 and 6, 2015 to dig into the data on who was most buzzworthy at this year's CES. Text100 tracked and analyzed more than 250,000 US CES mentions over this period.
On social, the competition was fierce, but we saw on social media that Samsung have dominated the discussion around CES, garnering over 16,000 mentions out of the entire total of 250,000.
Brand talk was big on Twitter, with the site hosting 95% of conversations, Facebook accounting for 4% and online news sites 1%.
While media outlets such as CNET, Mashable, USA TODAY and Engadget dominated the top 10 in terms of online reach, it was interesting to note that individuals also drove online conversations.
Of the 350,000 CES-related impressions tracked, rapper/songwriter/actor and philanthropist will.i.am (@iamwill) came second to @CNET in terms of impressions, undeniably aided by his more than 12.7 million followers.
Mashable journalist Samantha Hey (tweeting as @HeySamantha) and the Wall Street Journal's Geoffrey Fowler (@geoffreyfowler) also cracked the top 10, with Fowler outpacing the @WSJD tech handle by more than 17 million impressions.
The Lenovo ThinkPad and ThinkPad Stack are both in the top 5 most mentioned products so far, at 1st and 5th respectively.
Coming in 2nd is the still much anticipated Apple Watch (thought to be slated for a March release) despite Apple not making any CES announcements, or participating in the show.
Bro culture on parade: Entourage movie edition
The social brosphere exploded with awesomeness and virtual embraces to "hug it out" when the Entourage movie trailer hit the internets. By the way, it's coming out summer 2015 ICYMI.
Our friends at Gawker wanted to know if this cinematic effort was being anticipated as "dope" vs "epic", and we couldn't help but oblige in this scientific social data quandary. Check out this sweet graph bro, featured in their coverage, and created from our Brandwatch social data.
Most Popular Tweets
The most popular Tweet came from the Jersey Shore's DJ Pauly D who's said that the movie trailer was "so dope!" The Tweet received 180 retweets.
Justin Pugh of the NY Giants also Tweeted that the movie is going to be epic.
Both DJ Pauly D and Justin Pugh mentioned Jerry Ferrara, who plays Turtle in Entourage. He was the most mentioned member of the show/movie in conversations using "epic" and "dope".
Why's everyone got it out for Nickelback?
It's the band everyone loves to hate. Or do they?
We tracked mentions of Nickelback from December 1, 2014 through January 7, 2015 and out of the 26,000 mentions of the band, and this may shock you, we have seen nearly the same amount of positive mentions as we have negative.
Many mentions asked "why" do people hate Nickelback, since they "love" them. There were also many mentions of people apologizing for liking the band. I say, own it. We all have different likes, dislikes, and guilty pleasures. I'll start, I love ABBA, Benedict Cumberbatch, and butterflies.
The most positive mentions came from those who received or bought concert Tickets for the band's upcoming tour. We saw nearly 3,000 mentions of "concert tickets".
Are you one of the people who can't stand the band and shudder every time one of their songs makes it onto your Pandora playlist?
Well, we found a hilarious article from BuzzFeed on who to unfriend from Facebook, the first to the guillotine - Nickelback fans. I apparently have six people to delete. (Just kidding guys, I won't hold it against you).
#JeSuisCharlie, #NAACPbombing, and the power of social media
This week, the offices of French satirical weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, were attacked in a shooting leaving 12 dead.
As we have seen before, social media is where news breaks and during times of crisis it is the number one source for updates and sharing messages of solidarity and sympathy.
We have been tracking the three of the most trending hashtags: #CharlieHebdo, #JeSuisCharlie, and #ParisShooting and have seen more than 2.8 million mentions from all over the world.
The highest volume of mentions occurred between 8-10 p.m. GMT on January 7, with many conversations of vigils taking place.
Some of the most mentioned topics have included: CharlieHebdo attack, French, and France.
Internationally infamous graffiti artist, Banksy, has also made his way into the most mentioned topics for his response to the victims, which he shared on Instagram.
In the U.S. there was a bombing at an NAACP building in Colorado earlier in the week that barely registered in the media until social users started connecting the hashtags and mentioning it in conversations related to the widely covered shooting in Paris. We have seen more than 158,000 mentions of the NAACP bombing this week
Social media's power has never been so potent, and it's showing no signs of stopping.
Next week in data
With CES wrapping today, we're going to continue analyzing with our friends at Text100 and dive into the full data set of the 2015 conversation around the tech show. Stay tuned!
Not to mention the Golden Globes are mere days away this Sunday, January 11. Tons of hilarious Amy and Tina one-liners and ridiculous celeb memes will undoubtedly emerge allowing us to Tweet away our days.
One last thing, I have to share the Steve Ballmer dance video, because hilarity. It's trending on Twitter, and you will never be able to unsee it. Enjoy!
Interested in learning more about social listening and data or have a question for Brandwatch? Visit us here or email me [email protected]!