16 Jan 12

What people searched for and shared in 2011

by Jonathan Sepulchre, Search planner/Buyer

Now that 2011 is behind us we can look at what people discussed on the Internet last year. Google, Facebook and Twitter are all publishing their list of top stories that people searched for or shared in 2011. These lists are really interesting indicators of the most talked about topics of 2011. 

Looking at Google Global Fastest Rising Searches for 2011, the singer Rebecca Black occupies the top spot (not for the good musical reason in my opinion - you can check her Friday video here:http://youtu.be/kfVsfOSbJY0). She is followed by Google + and Ryan Dunn. In terms of top products, Battlefield 3, iPhone 5 (yet to be announced) and the iPad2 delivered the fastest global rise in search volumes.

Looking at the UK specifically, the fastest rising search query was the Royal Wedding. 5 products and services made the top 10 for the UK: the iPhone 5 (number 2), Fifa 12 (number 3), Groupon (number 4), the iPad 2 (number 5) and Minecraft (number 8).

Facebook Memology for 2011 focuses on the top 10 global topics. The top 3 positions are occupied by the death of Osama bin Laden, followed by two big American news stories: the Super Bowl and the Casey Anthony trial. Two UK related topics made the top 10: The Royal Wedding (number 6) and the death of Amy Winehouse (number 7). The video game Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 was the only product to make the top 10 (number 8).

In the UK, the top trend was the Royal Wedding followed by the UK riots and TOWIE. Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 was once again the only product to make the top 10 in 9th position.

Twitter has also published its top trends by topic, with the top news for 2011 including Mubarak's resignation, the Raid on Osama bin Laden and the Japanese earthquake/Fukushima nuclear disaster.

It seems therefore that as a product/service, the best way to generate buzz is to ensure you have a cool high tech product, a fantastic video game or a bad musician/TV show…

All these rankings are available here:

Google: http://www.googlezeitgeist.com/en-GB

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/facebook?sk=app_271705986210152

Twitter:http://yearinreview.twitter.com/en/hottopics.html