With more than 34 lakh tweets, PM Narendra Modi the most talked about person on Twitter: Data

NEW DELHI: With more than 34 lakh tweets, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the most talked about person on Twitter in India, according to data compiled by social media analytics firm Blueocean Market Intelligence. Politics, sports and Bollywood led the chatter in India, the study shared with ET showed.

Modi led with 34,16,000 tweets, followed by actor Salman Khan with 27,29,000. The India vs Pakistan Cricket World Cup match had 17 lakh tweets, the Indian Premier League almost 15 lakh and the intolerance row 800,000.
According to the study, social media users relied heavily on the micro-blogging site this year to keep themselves abreast of the latest developments and expressed their opinions through quick and witty hashtags.

US President Barack Obama’s visit to India as the Republic Day chief guest was considered a major coup for Modi, who generated positive chatter with his continuous engagement with world leaders and CEOs for his “Make-in-India” and “ease of doing business” pitches.

He also stayed in the limelight due to campaigns such as Digital India and Swachh Bharat. Modi also attracted criticism from Twitterati for his trips to countries ranging from Seychelles, Mongolia and Mauritius to the US, UK, UAE and China.

His leadership was often seen as raising people’s expectations and hopes and reflected in online conversations. In terms of media distribution, 94% of the conversations on ‘Namo’ were on Twitter, with the remainder generated publicly on other social media platforms such as Facebook.

The year was eventful for actor Salman Khan and his top hashtags were Salmanverdict, Bajrangibhaijaan and Premratandhanpayo.

India’s sixth straight victory over arch-rivals Pakistan in the World Cup was one of the high points of 2015. Hashtags such as IndvsPak, BleedBlue and We-WontGiveItBack started trending before the tournament began as fans engaged in a Twitter battle for supremacy.

The subject also generated the highest number of retweets with fans forwarding comments of Modi, Sachin Tendulkar and Amitabh Bachchan on India's victory. Pepsiipl, IPLverdict and IPLdraft were the top trending hashtags on IPL as franchises engaged with fans through individual team hashtags and other content.

Conversations around IPL started picking up from mid-year again due to scandals and the Supreme Court’s ban on Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals. Traction increased when two new teams – Rajkot and Pune were added for the next season. The Blueocean study excluded promoted content.

The various debates on intolerance, including the return of awards and actor Aamir Khan’s comments, generated a lot of online heat.

Snapdeal, the brand endorsed by Khan, faced the repercussions in November. Hashtags such as bootoutsnapdeal and appwapsi trended extensively during this row.

Other notable trending topics of 2015 were the Delhi and Bihar elections, the one-rank, one-pension row, Chennai floods, the movie Baahubali: The Beginning, the Nepal earthquake, Game of Thrones, the Paris attacks, the Maggie noodles row and the death of former president APJ Abdul Kalam.