What was most popular on Facebook, Twitter and Google in 2012?

by Mark Frary

As the end of the year approaches, social networks like to sum up the year that has just passed.

Google creates its annual Zeitgeist site which this year is more comprehensive than ever, featuring 838 top 10 lists from 55 countries to see what people there have been searching for.

Three UK events dominated search during 2012. Perhaps surprisingly, the Olympics was not the most searched-for term but instead that accolade went to the Euro 2012 football championships, which topped both the general search and news search tables. The Olympics - and “Olympic tickets” in particular - came in at number two. The third event dominating search in the year was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. All three events had implications for the travel sector. (As an aside, the Department for Transport just released statistics that showed that the number of air passengers coming to the UK fell by 500,000 in July and 300,000 in August compared to the previous year. So much for an Olympics tourism boom.)

Each year, Google also reveals which travel destinations have been most popular in search. Can you guess which it is this year?

Presumably driven by excitement from the London 2012 Olympics, this year’s most searched destination is Rio de Janeiro while Brazil came in at number three. The second most popular – perhaps for fiscal rather than travel reasons – was Greece. The top domestic destination was London with Cornwall the next highest placed travel search term.

The search engine also reveals the most searched for categories in Google Maps. Hotels come in first place, meaning that hoteliers should do more to ensure that their presence on Google Maps is up to date. Interestingly, the budget hotel chain Premier Inn came in eighth place on the full list. Camping was the fourth most searched for place term in the full list of place terms searched for on Google Maps. The top three cities searched for in Google’s mapping service were London, Bristol and Manchester.

Twitter has also shared its Year in Review. The microblogging network reveals that the most retweeted tweet of the year was from a certain B Obama sharing the news that he was going to be around for “four more years”. Interesting, Twitter used its review to promote a service called Vizify, which lets you see your own Twitter year in review – showing you your best follower and the tweet that got the most engagement from your followers, as well as analysing what you tweeted about during the past 12 months.

Facebook reveals its 2012 trends on its Facebook Stories site and you can use it to see trends from your own timeline for the last 12 months. The Olympics were the biggest trending subject during the year in the UK but Facebook also reveals that the three locations where users checked in most in the UK were Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Manchester’s Trafford Centre.