Sheikh Mohammed sent out tweets in 2017 that rose to the top of the Twitter charts.
Dubai - Twitter reveals most popular hashtags, trends this year
Published: Thu 7 Dec 2017, 7:59 PM
Last updated: Fri 8 Dec 2017, 2:53 PM
Every year, social media continues to light it up even brighter. And what better platform - or battleground - to have it but on Twitter.
The social media company has revealed the top trends for 2017, and there are some quite interesting results.
Earlier this year, Twitter launched its Moments guide in Arabic that enables people to discover new content by displaying curated 'Moments', a feature that creates a Moment based on a collection of tweets. Located in Twitter's Explore tab, this tool features timely Moments around global and regional topics that include news, sports and entertainment, that are also tweeted from @MomentsMENA.
One of the key highlights that made 2017 unique was when Twitter's Co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey (@jack) Tweeted Arabic Eid wishes for the first time to celebrate Eid Al Adha:
As far as the UAE is concerned, our friends at Twitter shared with us an exclusive graphic that details the most talked about trends during 2017:
Thanks, Twitter!
UAE's most retweeted
This goes to the tweet sent out by no less than His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, (@HHShkMohd) congratulating Saudi Arabia and Egypt for qualifying for the 2018 Fifa World Cup:
Another top tweet in the UAE was from - again - Sheikh Mohammed himself, who sent out a message on the occasion of the birthday of the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan:
UAE's top trends
Twitter was also used to announce some of the most important events in the UAE during 2017.
People continued to witness only-on-Twitter moments when Sheikh Mohammed leveraged the power of the platform to announce the UAE Cabinet restructure through a series of tweets. Through Twitter, @HHShkMohd announced the inauguration of two new ministries: the Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and the Ministry of Food Security, as well as UAE's commitment to joining the global effort to send humans to Mars - a testimonial to how Twitter has been embraced by leaders to keep the public informed about what's happening.
The region also witnessed the launch of the 'Retweets Challenge'.
Carter Wilkerson's (@carterjwm) call for a year's supply of free nuggets from @Wendys was heard around the globe, and became the most retweeted tweet with 3.6 million Retweets, surpassing Ellen's infamous selfie as the most retweeted tweet of all time.
The trend continued and spread across the Middle East and North Africa region, where Dubai-based banker Hasan Sajwani @HSajwanization asked to take 25 orphans to the movies, with several brands joining the conversation to support the cause:
Meanwhile, below are some of the top trending hashtags and handles in the UAE:
Top national hashtags:
1. Year of Giving
2. Flag Day
3. Year of Zayed
4. National Day
Top sports hashtags:
1. Arabian Gulf League
2. Al Hilal
3. Real Madrid (#halalmadrid)
4. Barcelona FC
Top football team hashtags:
1. @Alainfcae (Al Ain Football Club)
2. @ManUtd (Manchester United Football Club)
3. @AlWaslSC (Al Wasl Soccer Club)
4. @AlWahdaFCC (Al Wahda Football Club)
Top Arab celebrity hashtags:
1. @AhlamAlShamsi (Emirati singer)
2. @Nadinenjeim (Lebanese actress)
3. @elissakh (Lebanese singer)
4. @MohammedOSaad (Egyptian singer)
Top Arab celebrity hashtags:
1. @Aldenrichards02 (Alden Richards, Filipino actor)
2. @Iamsrk (Shah Rukh Khan, Indian actor)
3. @Harry_Styles (English singer)
4. @justinbieber (Canadian singer)
Meanwhile, globally...
Breaking news, entertainment, sports and local conversations... name it; if it happened anywhere, it happened on Twitter.
The most retweeted tweets, meanwhile, are the following:
https://twitter.com/carterjwm/status/849813577770778624
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/896523232098078720
https://twitter.com/PennStateIFC/status/902970410404372480
https://twitter.com/ArianaGrande/status/866849021519966208
https://twitter.com/POTUS44/status/819044196371800065
Two of the most liked tweets came from former US president Barack Obama:
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/896523232098078720
https://twitter.com/ArianaGrande/status/866849021519966208
https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/887836712822558720
And which of the following movies - which were the most popular on Twitter - were able to see?
Demi Lovato led the most tweeted about fan armies:
#lovatics (fans of Demi Lovato)
#littlemonsters (fans of Lady Gaga)
#harmonizers (fans of Fifth Harmony)
#beliebers (fans of Justin Bieber)
#5sosfam (fans of Five Seconds of Summer)
And finally, the most viewed live stream broadcasts on Twitter was the 'US President Inauguration Day 2017' special live coverage by PBS on January 1, 2017 (no surprise here).
If you've noticed, #MeToo - which grew exponentially thanks to a growing number of women coming out to report inappropriate behaviour against them - didn't make the cut.
Nevertheless, here's to looking forward to another wild year in the Twitterverse.
- alvin@khaleejtimes.com
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