2016 has come and gone. In it’s wake, our esteemed data wranglers mined a few interesting nuggets from our mountain of data. Our 2016 Year in Review revealed surprising findings on social media audience across the world.
We gather our raw data from our share buttons. The buttons have been installed on over 3 million sites, giving publishers a quick and easy way to make their content shareable on virtually every social media channel imaginable. We capture sharing information in real time, building a unique view of global interests and trends. Got it? Good! On to the fun stuff.
The Big Numbers
In 2016, ShareThis captured 157.9 billion events, 943.3 million shares from our share buttons, and 16.7 billion click-backs from shared content.
158B
Total events
943M
Shares
17B
Click-backs
Where Do You Share?
Shares to Facebook and Twitter lead the pack at 37% and 36% respectively. While LinkedIn made up a small portion of total shares (2%), the platform experienced the most growth in 2016, with a 94% increase in shares year over year.
Distribution of Sharing
37%
36%
15%
9%
2015-2016 Year Over Year Growth
+94%
+51%
+13%
+2%
Mobile, Mobile, Mobile!
No surprises here – people love using mobile phones to engage with social content.
71%
Mobile
19%
Desktop
10%
Tablet
If you’re not making your content easily available and shareable on mobile devices, then you need to rewrite your new year’s resolutions so that they include making your amazing content mobile optimized. We’re not trying to harsh your mellow. This comes from a place of love.
People of the Year
Politics dominated the conversation in 2016. Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama topped the list. Are you surprised?
Donald Trump
381M Events
Hillary Clinton
201M Events
Barack Obama
35M Events
Prince
25M Events
Distribution of Negative Election Sentiment
Take a closer look at the sentiment of shares related to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. During the first 90 days of 2016, the majority of negative sentiment was aimed at Trump (59%). Over the last 90 days of the campaign, the majority of the negative sentiment was around Clinton. (58%)
Negative Sentiment First 90 Days of 2016
Donald Trump
59%
Hillary Clinton
41%
Negative Sentiment Last 90 Days of Campaign
Donald Trump
42%
Hillary Clinton
58%
Deeper Sentiment Analysis
Based on volume of negative content that was shared and consumed about each candidate state by state, we were able to make predictions about which candidate would win each state.
ShareThis Predictions Based on Social Sentiment
Actual Election Results
Brands of the year
Tech giant Apple had the largest presence in the social sharing space, followed by Amazon, Samsung, and Disney.
110M Events
80M Events
38M Events
33M Events
Movies of the Year
2016 was the year of the Super hero, with Batman vs. Superman, Suicide Squad, Dr. Strange, and Deadpool rounding out the top four most shared about movies of the year. Bringing back memories of last Halloween?
TV Shows of the Year
The Walking Dead and Silicon Valley drew significant social interest along with newer series, American Crime Story and Luke Cage.
Trending Topics
Politics, politics and more politics! 2016 was one crazy year in American politics and our data shows that people consumed the most content around the presidential candidates.
And so far this year, we’ve seen weekly social activity around Politics grow compared to last year’s numbers and we’re not surprised.
In the coming months, we plan to provide you with more insights so you can better understand trending social activity across the open web. Stay tuned!
