As the number of Twitter users in India grows rapidly, year by year, the social networking platform is becoming an increasingly important source of communication. It’s where news is broken, views are shared – and countered – help is crowd sourced and, of course, there’s plenty of entertainment thrown in with celebrities joining the mix.
The folks at Twitter India have compiled a list of the top trends on the platform for the year 2015, as it draws to a close. Want to know which was India’s most retweeted post, or who gained the maximum followers this year? Read on.
Golden Tweet
Indian’s Golden Tweet for 2015 was Shah Rukh Khan’s selfie with former One Direction singer Zayn Malik. Posted in April at the Asian Awards in London, it fetched over 1,41,000 retweets and was viewed nearly 18.3 million times.
This kid is so cool. May Allah bless him. Dinner time at the Asian Awards. pic.twitter.com/l0gV12n0kv
— Shah Rukh Khan (@iamsrk) April 17, 2015
Influential Moments On February 15, India beating Pakistan in the first match of the Cricket World Cup in 2015 was the most viewed TV and sports event of the year and drew a record-breaking 118.3 million Impressions on Twitter. In the run up to the Delhi Legislative Assembly Elections on February 10, there were over 10.8 million election-related tweets during the 30-day campaign. #DelhiElections and #DelhiVotes were regularly trending. #ChennaiRains, #ChennaiFloods and #ChennaiRainsHelp have featured in over 1.4 million tweets that have helped coordinate relief efforts, put people in touch with their loved ones, and to disseminate important information pertaining to the ongoing situation. Popular Hashtags #IPL: The biggest T20 cricket league in the world had enthusiastic fans discussing the league online with over 9 million tweets. #SelfieWithDaughter: PM Modi’s campaign to promote rights of the girl child – by asking men to post selfies with their daughters – attracted over 3,75,000 tweets. #BiharResults: On polling day, this hashtag trended with over 2,60,000 tweets. Another hashtag, #BiharElections, was instrumental in conveying breaking news and encouraging dialogue on social media. Firsts on Twitter Make In India: It became the first non-US brand to get its own Twitter emoji for a worldwide audience.
Ladies and gentlemen, Twitter launches the Emoji version of India’s favourite lion from their global head quarters #MakeInIndia — Make in India (@makeinindia) November 4, 2015
Cricket timelines for #CWC15 and #IPL: The two hashtags became a one-stop cricket tweets, commentary, expert analysis, plus photos, videos and Vines from the sidelines at the world’s biggest cricketing events.
ICC & @Twitter join forces to launch first ever #cwc15 experience for fans worldwide http://t.co/EsrXCGXALE pic.twitter.com/uO2maGEHI6
— ICC (@ICC) February 12, 2015
Most Followed Indian Accounts
Amitabh Bachchan tops the list with 18.1 million followers, while Shah Rukh Khan and PM Modi follow with 16.5 million and 16.4 million followers respectively. The latter had the biggest increase in number of followers.
