November 18, 2010
We at immediate future feel it’s only right to flag Will and Kate’s wedding engagement this week. Over the past couple of days #royalwedding has been the number one trending topic on Twitter, followed by Kate Middleton at number two and Prince William at number three.
As the news was announced earlier this week BlogPulse showed us that Kate Middleton was the second most featured person on blogs worldwide yesterday behind Harry Potter.
Prince Charles’ Twitter account @ClarenceHouse was set up on the 15th November, the day before the royal announcement. It therefore seems as though it was created for the key purpose of handling the engagement news.
The announcement comes as an early Christmas gift to bloggers and journalists with articles popping up every few minutes speculating wedding locations, dates, attendees and even what Kate Middleton will be wearing on the big day!
According to Mashable, online sentiment surrounding the announcement was mostly positive (43%) on Twitter, another 41% of Twitter users responded neutrally to the news; and just 16% of tweets about the engagement were negative. Around 32% of bloggers reacted positively, while most (63%) conveyed a neutral reaction. Comments are mostly congratulating the happy couple with others projecting anger about the tax bill.
Platforms such as Twitter are becoming increasingly more useful in providing a snapshot of public opinion, showing brands, organisations and in this case the Royal Family a simple way of monitoring online buzz.
The launch of @ClarenceHouse follows the recent introduction of the official Monarchy Facebook and Flickr account earlier this year. The Monarchy also joined Twitter in 2009 and established a Royal Channel on YouTube in 2007. Similar to the hype surrounding the last general election, the online buzz surrounding this story has been an online phenomenon and is likely to dominate the UK social media agenda next year in 2011.