Christmas Crackers: Social Media Highlights 2013

Ho Ho Ho!

It’s that time of year again.

Perhaps it is ‘the most wonderful time of the year’, if your definition of wonderful includes breaking a sweat at the thought of the January credit card bills, watching Eastenders ever cheery Christmas special and eating at least three industrial sized tins of Quality Street.

From the manic lead up to the over indulgence of that glorious week between Christmas day and New Year’s, we love the festive season.

As our Christmas gift to you, we thought we’d look at the social media highlights of the year. What was the most tweeted moment? The worst social media fail?  So sit back, have a mince pie and some mulled wine (or something less sophisticated, we won’t judge) and enjoy! The best use of social media by a brand: Oreo https://twitter.com/Oreo/status/298246571718483968 Most people have seen it, but for those who haven’t we’ll recap. During the biggest advertising night of the year, the Superbowl, a power cut occurred. During the 34 minutes when the power was out Oreo tweeted an impromptu ad that gained more publicity than those who had paid big bucks to advertise on TV during the Superbowl. Here is the tweet in question: The ad was retweeted 10,000 times in one hour. CNET’s Daniel Terdiman stated: “Oreo came up with an idea so brilliant and bold that it out and out won the night.” Impressive. The worst use of social media by a brand (sorry we couldn’t pick just one) We really were spoiled for choice here. Not really much we can say here other than perhaps it is time for a new social media strategy for 2014.

A Wee Bit Dull

This Facebook post from Ronseal (Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin) is not particularly offensive…it just makes us say “Sorry, what? Why was this posted?” Fair enough if they wanted to engage with people more with some lighthearted content, but the tone of the post is stale and awkward!

A Wee Bit Offensive

So many things wrong here - insensitive, embarrassing and inappropriate to name but a few. Needless to say, this tweet was not received well by twitter users, who slated Kellogg’s strange tweet and was promptly removed.

A Wee Bit Shameless

Then of course there was the endless amount of brands jumping on the bandwagon of the birth of the Royal baby. Our favourite is this shameless tweet from Pizza Hut, love the code. Hey, Kate please have another baby so we can get a free side or dessert please!

Most talked about people on Facebook

These four people were amongst the most talked about on Facebook in 2013. From the death of two huge political figures, the appointment of a new pontiff and um… a twerking former Disney star, 2013 certainly was a diverse year, reflected in what people were discussing on social media.

Most Tweeted Moment

This was not only the most tweeted moment of 2013, but the most tweeted moment ever. Any guesses? Racking up an impressive 143,199 tweets per second was the 1986 Japanese film ‘Castle in the Sky’. Yeah. Apparently it has become some kind of Japanese tradition to tweet ‘Balse!’ (a line from the film) when the film is on TV. This seemingly non-descript event, went on to become the most tweeted moment of all time.

Cutest social media moment of 2013

Hey, it’s Christmas, we’re allowed to get a little soft at this time of year! Without a doubt the cutest use of social media this year came from a four year old boy and his mother. Noah, found out he needed glasses and instantly burst into tears as he was worried he’d be bullied. To show him that glasses are cool, his mum set up a Facebook page showing him that glasses are in fact, awesome. Read Noah's Story Here

Noah looking awesome in his glasses.

Merry Christmas everyone!

What were your social media highlights of 2013?

Tweet us @ThisIsParachute and let us know!