What got the most Twitter traction in Canada this year?

The Habs, Drake, iHeartRadio and John Tavares got a lot of love on social this year.
By Bree Rody
December 7, 2018

Brands looking at gaining attention on Twitter might want to consider cheering for the Montreal Canadians.

According to year-end data from Twitter Canada, the #GoHabsGo tag was the third-most mentioned Canadian tag from Canadian users across the entire platform – more than any other sports-related tag.

The most popular hashtag, once again, was #BellLetsTalk, part of the telco’s annual mental health awareness campaign. According to Bell, the social tag had more than 867,449,649 interactions (across multiple platforms). #BellLetsTalk was also the third-highest hashtag used by Canadians out of all hashtags (American-born hashtags #iHeartAwards and #BestFanArmy tracked higher).

Canadians are also highly political, as the #CDNpoli hashtag was the second-most popular this year.

And, although they managed to miss the Playoffs, that didn’t stop #GoHabsGo from being the third-most-used hashtag. That was followed by #Toronto and #OnPoli.

Although the Habs got the most love and support from Twitter users throughout the year, the individual athletes that racked up the Twitter love came from across the entire world of sports. Toronto-born basketball player Tristan Thompson had the most mentions of the year of all male athletes (Twitter attributed a large chunk of the mentions to the birth of Thompson’s baby girl with wife Kylie Jenner in April), followed by ice dancer and Olympian Scott Moir. Hockey players rounded out the top-five, with Leafs centre John Tavares, Nova Scotia-born Penguins captain Sidney Crosby and Boston left-winger Brad Marchand following.

For Tavares, the most-engaged-with Tweet was the one he made immediately following his signing with the team, which Twitter noted got more traction from Canadians than most Tweets by former President Barack Obama.

 

For the top-mentioned female athletes, Moir’s partner Tessa Virtue was the top account, followed by tennis star Genie Bouchard. Golfer Brooke Henderson took the third spot, followed by Virtue’s fellow Olympians Kaetlyn Osmond and Meagan Duhamel.

The Toronto Raptors’ account was the most-mentioned sports account, followed by the Leafs, the Jays, the Habs and the Humboldt Broncos.

For celebrities, Drake and Ryan Reynolds once again took the top mentions in their respective categories. Drake was the most-mentioned musician, followed by Shawn Mendes, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd and Sebastian Olzanski. Reynolds was the top male actor, followed by Jim Carrey, Seth Rogen, Stephen Amell and Finn Wolfhard. Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell became the most-mentioned female actor on Twitter, followed by Nina Dobrev, Sandra Oh, Stana Katic and Evangeline Lilly.

Of the most-mentioned accounts on Twitter, only one was actually Canadian; Prime Minister Justin Trudeal was the fourth-most mentioned account by Canadians. The top honours went to K-pop band BTS, followed by U.S. President Donald Trump and YouTube. Exo, another K-pop band, was the fifth-most mentioned.

Tags: