EDMONTON – Edmonton’s hashtag, #yeg, was the second most popular Twitter trend in Canada for 2013, according to the social media company.
“It’s a real indication of how strong the Twitter community is in Edmonton,” said Kirstine Stewart, Managing Director for Twitter Canada.
“It was really interesting to see how much the community has embraced the #yeg hashtag, how they’ve learned to adapt the hashtag to different things that are going on in the community, how handles like your local hydro use it to tag tweets so that people can follow along.”
The top five Canadian trends were:
- #cdnpoli
- #yeg
- #music
- #nowplaying
- Canada
As part of its annual year in review, Twitter offered highlights from 2013, including news, entertainment and sports trends on Twitter for the year.
Edmonton was the only city to make the top five Canadian trends in 2013.
There were more than 1 million mentions of #yeg throughout the year.
There was a huge peak in mentions during the major hail storm in June. Four other peaks in the hashtag occurred on Feb. 15 and 16, when there was a water main break in the city; on March 21 and 22, during the massive vehicle crash on the QEII highway; on June 12, when a hail storm hit Edmonton; and on Oct. 22 and 23, following the election of new mayor Don Iveson.
“There were times when the activity spiked through the year,” explained Stewart. “You had everything from the hail storm that happened in the summer, because weather, real-time moments are really big on Twitter. People react when something is happening and they have conversations around it in the moment.”
She added that while there were spikes in the #yeg conversation, it is quite strong year-round.
“There is just a general really good, healthy conversation that happens around the #yeg hashtag all through the year.”
According to Twitter, key trends associated with the #yeg hashtag include:
#oilers
#yegwx
#yegvote
#edmonton
David Perron
Tornado warning
Calgary
#yegevents
The Twitter year in review also included Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s response to the June floods. The social media company noticed the reaction to his long hours during the disaster, as Calgarians took to Twitter to encourage him to rest using the hashtag #nap4nenshi.
“When someone comes up with their own viral hashtag like #nap4nenshi, that’s something that comes from the community,” said Stewart. “Obviously there’s a connection to the mayor of Calgary and all he was trying to help people through the floods.
“Nenshi’s really good on Twitter himself… and it’s a direct communication… You’ve got the chance to speak directly out to people, and that means they have the chance to speak directly to you. And that’s what they did for Nenshi – they obviously wanted to take care of their mayor.”
For the complete Twitter 2013 review, and other highlights, click here.
More to come…
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