Olympics, Trump and Pokemon top Twitter

Football may have earned the biggest single spike on Twitter in the UK, but the Olympics, Donald Trump and Pokemon Go have topped the Twitter ladder globally.

The Rio Olympics, Donald Trump's election as US president and augmented reality sensation Pokemon Go were the biggest global Twitter trends of 2016, the social media site has revealed.

Meanwhile, the biggest single spike in Twitter activity in the UK was sparked by England's shock defeat to Iceland at Euro 2016, as 128,000 tweets per minute were sent in the wake of the 2-1 loss that dumped England out of the tournament.

Euro 2016 was also the fourth biggest overall Twitter trend of the year.

The second biggest activity spike was also provided by football - after Leicester City's remarkable Premier League title triumph, which was confirmed with the final whistle at Stamford Bridge and Spurs' 2-2 draw with Chelsea in May.

The global trends list also featured the Oscars in fifth place, with Brexit, Black Lives Matter, Donald Trump, the phrase RIP in honour of a range of celebrity deaths throughout the year and Game Of Thrones completing the top 10.

Despite One Direction taking a break this year, Harry Styles took top spot in the most followed UK celebrities list thanks to his 29.5 million followers, closely followed by Adele, his band mates Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne.

Emma Watson, Zayn Malik, Ed Sheeran, Wayne Rooney, Simon Cowell and Stephen Fry make up the rest of the top 10.

As a platform it was a mixed year for Twitter however, with user numbers still not growing quickly enough for some investors.

The social media site sits more than a billion users behind Facebook.


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Source: AAP


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Olympics, Trump and Pokemon top Twitter | SBS News