What Happened on Social Media in 2014?

We can’t believe 2014 is over. Oh how time flies when you’re having fun! So much happens so quickly in the social sphere that it can be hard to keep up. When was the Super Bowl? Who won the World Cup? Which iPhone are we on now? Don’t fret. We’ve wrapped up the most influential social conversations that hit the internet in 2014.

January
snap

If you always dreamed to have your Snapchat username and phone number leaked to the world, 2014 was your year! To start off 2014, 4.6 million Snapchat accounts were compromised. The compromise was in an attempt to get Snapchat to beef up their security and perhaps a precursor to what would soon happen to Target.

February

We love Super Bowl commercials and the Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Challenge is always a favorite. #CrashTheSuperBowl is an annual online contest where consumers are invited to create a Doritos Ad in hopes of it being aired during the Super Bowl. In 2014 the winner of the contest went home with $1 Million for this Time Machine piece. The Crash the Super Bowl Contest is the largest online video contest in the world.

March
ellen

Remember this? Ellen DeGeneres hosted the Oscars and decided to take a selfie with some serious A-Listers. She then tweeted out the image and broke Twitter. Here are some stats:

8.1 million people saw the tweet a total of 26 million times (impressions).
13,711 web pages embedded the tweet, and those embeds were seen 6.8 million times
Overall, the tweet was seen 32.8 million times.
The tweet has been retweeted more than 3.2 million times
April
heart

On a more serious note this is the month where the Target Heartbleed fiasco happened. The Heartbleed bug exposed the payment account numbers of 40 million Target customers. According to ReCode. As a result of the attack, shares of Target hit a 52-week low and the company was forced to reduce its 2013 Q4 earnings forecast.

May
bring

On April 15th, the Boko Haram Terrorists in Nigeria kidnapped 273 girls from the Chibok Government Secondary School. Approximately 230 are still missing. #BringBackOurGirls started as an attempt to discourage violence in schools and return the girls home. Even though this happened in April it continued to be a major social discussion in May.

June
cia

The CIA gets social! The CIA officially joined Twitter and tweeted for the first time. Within an hour, the CIA already had over 50,000 followers while only following 25 accounts. “By expanding to these platforms, CIA will be able to more directly engage with the public and provide information on CIA’s mission, history, and other developments,” said CIA Director John Brennan, in a statement.

July
pot

All Zack Danger Brown wanted to do was make a delicious potato salad. From July 5th to July 9th, the Kickstarter funding jumped from $1,000 to $70,000, with 23 days of funding left. His original goal was only $10. Well played Zach, well played.

August
Academy-tweet-about-Robin-Williams

In August we all had to say goodbye to a comedy icon, Robin Williams. This tweet that the Academy tweeted went viral on social media. Fans used social media to express their condolences and show appreciation for his work. He will truly be missed.

September
IPhone 6 Updated Main Image

The newest iPhone was released in September. In it’s first weekend of sales, the iPhone topped the 10 million mark and was the biggest launch since the App Store℠. Shortly after the release the #BendGate phenomenon began. The first video, Unbox Therapy, showed how the iPhone could bend with nothing but one’s bare hands. On the Wednesday after the release, #BendGate was the number three trending hashtag on Twitter.

October
Taylor_Swift_-_1989

On October 27th, Taylor Swift released her first official pop album. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 1,287,000 copies. Her album, 1989, had the highest sales week since 2002 and Swift became the first artist to have three albums sell a million copies in a week. Not only has her newest album done exceptionally well, but she used social media to amplify it further to her fans. Swift launched “secret sessions.” She hand picked fans who had commented on her social pages and asked them to participate in a live music session in a secret place where she played the entire album for them ahead of the release.

November
alex

Oh teenagers! Alex from Target becomes a national sensation from one initial photo of him bagging groceries at a Target in Texas. He received over 300,000 followers in under 24 hours and within two days was already on CNN and talking with Ellen DeGeneres. On social, #AlexFromTarget became a social phenomenon. People were wondering who he was and where the original tweet came from. According to different measuring platforms, between Sunday and Wednesday there were 1.3 million tweet referencing “Alex from Target” and 2.2 million tweets using the #AlexFromTarget hashtag. In simple terms, he was an overnight sensation.

December
YouTube blogger Zoe Sugg, known as Zoella, poses during a photocall for her debut novel “Girl Online” in London

Zoe Sugg aka Zoella, a YouTube Star, came out with her first book, Girl Online. Her novel has recorded the biggest first week sales ever for a debut book. The novel sold over 78,000 in its first week and is the fastest selling hardback of 2014. Sugg is a perfect example of the value of top tier content creation and the value of influencers.

We are looking forward to everything 2015 will bring and can’t wait for yet another new year! Let us know your predictions for what craziness might happen in January.