The Royal Wedding gathered world attention and a massive amount of Facebook updates. Read on for who was popular….
The Big Numbers
· Over a million people in the UK used Facebook statuses to discuss the Royal Wedding in the past 24 hours.
· During this morning alone some 684,399 status updates referencing the wedding were posted in just 4 hours in the UK – equating to an average of 47 mentions every second.
· Many people in the UK were so excited they couldn’t sleep, with just under 500 people updating about the pending nuptials per hour ahead of 8am
· Much has been said about the US obsession with today’s wedding – and this was reflected in our numbers – with greater numbers of American Facebook users posting updates than those from the UK – 1.953 million to the UK’s 1.004 million.
So who were people talking about?
· David Beckham’s arrival led to a surge in discussion – with 9,000 mentions of his name in just 20 minutes!
· Just under double the number of people were talking about David Beckham than Victoria Beckham
· The Queen and Prince Philip didn’t even feature in the top list of discussed people – and Prince Andrew was nowhere to be seen.
· Instead, we saw Harry’s position at number three and fledgling Royal celebrity Pippa Middleton at number 8
· Kate’s rebrand into ‘Princess Catherine’ has begun in earnest, with nearly 2,000 people mentioning her new name for the first time after the ceremony
· Prince Beatrice’s hat became the subject of a Facebook fan page – ‘Princess Beatrice’s Ridiculous Royal Wedding Hat’ (4000 fans) http://on.fb.me/lGyn7z
US versus UK
· Despite not featuring in the top ten list in the UK, in the US the Queen was the 14th most discussed topic – with a position in the list similar to that of Victoria Beckham in the UK.
Here’s the list for the UK:
1
Kate Middleton
131,385 mentions
2
Prince William
104,747 mentions
3
Prince Harry
64,107 mentions
4
David Beckham
22,421 mentions
5
Victoria Beckham
12,346 mentions
6
Elton John
12,283 mentions
7
Princess Diana
11,103 mentions
8
Pippa Middleton
8,619 mentions
9
Prince Charles
6,791 mentions
10
Princess Beatrice
4,439 mentions
11
Princess Catherine
1,928 mentions
12
Princess Eugenie
1,385 mentions
13
Guy Ritchie
290 mentions
And what got people chatting?
The dress…
· Speculation grew throughout the morning as to the designer of Kate’s dress; with references to Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, and Diana’s dress designer, David Emanuel.
o 13,120 mentions of Sarah Burton
o 7,863 mentions of Alexander McQueen
o 4,264 mentions of Emanuel
The hat…
· Samantha Cameron’s lack of a hat attracted a lot of attention – as she arrived at Westminster Abbey there was some 600 mentions of her total lack of hat…
…and the nose…!
· Tara Palmer-Tompkinson’s nose attracted a lot of discussion – with 2046 mentions in just 20 minutes!
Elton
· National treasure Elton John featured prominently in pictures from the Abbey – leading to over 12,000 mentions of him within status updates.
Where were people talking about the wedding?
· Thousands of people crowded the streets of London in order to see the event – and lots of them got closer to it by checking in to the key locations along the route using Facebook Places.
· Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey were most popular – with XXX and XXX people checking in.
New ways to interact with a Royal Wedding….
· ITN’s live stream was available on its Facebook Page with live comments: www.facebook.com/itn – It saw 3.5million streams + peaked at 110,000 viewers online.
· ITN used Facebook Questions to ask “who is the best dressed” and “where should they go on their honeymoon?” https://www.facebook.com/eonline#!/ITN?sk=questions
· CNN live streamed the event on its website with live comments: http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2011/royal.wedding/live/
· ABC live streamed the wedding on its Page: https://www.facebook.com/abcnews as well as creating royal wedding polls: https://www.facebook.com/abcnews?sk=app_20678178440
· ITN, CNN and ABC incorporated live Facebook statistics into their TV broadcasts.
Facebook Stories
· Facebook Stories, an app that enables people to share their thoughts and views, saw thousands of submissions from more than 30 countries, in more than 20 languages