Social Media catches #RoyalWedding fever #SMWF
As the big day approaches, the internet, if it was a biscuit, would be largely royal wedding flavoured. And having finally gotten over the crushing disappointment at not receiving an invite, SMWF blog is beginning to get caught up in the party atmosphere.
According to Bing, the number of blogs about the wedding has more than doubled since the start of the month to 102.9m, with the number of wedding related stories published every day souring to a staggering seven million… every day!
With around 45% of the related Twitter noise coming directly out of the US, Nielsen reports that the wedding has made up 0.3% of total US news coverage since details of the engagement were released, with the level immediately after the announcement closer to 3%.
Surprisingly, though future Queen of England and all round nice girl Kate Middleton has received considerable interest online, her husband to be Prince William continues to be the more popular subject of social media discussion in the UK, US and Australia, said Nielsen.
The number of royal wedding themed tweets has increased steadily over recent weeks to around 5000 an hour, a number that’s expected to literally go bananas as RW-Day approaches. Trendrr reports that only 12% of tweets are negative, with the majority, 45%, saying generally nice things about the happy couple.
Meanwhile the ABC News reports that social media is being employed by the security services in their effort to make sure everyone’s party remains unmarred by protesters, terrorists or most importantly, streakers. Authorities are said to be monitoring social media channels like hawks for any talk of protest, disruption or planned nakedness along the parade route.
The royal wedding will be streamed live in a four hour broadcast on YouTube as part of a social networking strategy that aims to boost the royal couple’s modern, tech-savvy and hip image. Fans are being invited to ‘sign the wedding book’ by uploading a video message of support on to the official Royal Channel on YouTube.
The prince’s press team will be live blogging the entire occasion with commentary, while Twitter, Facebook and Flickr will also feature heavily in the plan.
Meanwhile, reports are circulating that guests have been asked not to Tweet during the Westminster service, and that some may even have to surrender their mobile phones upon entering the church.