What’s Trending – June 2016

In June, Australians wanted to know all about big world events – the death of Muhammad Ali, Brexit, the Australian Federal election and UEFA Euro 2016 all made the cut. This is unlike Hot Searches – June 2015, where we were mainly concerned about what celebrities were getting up to. Maybe a year is all it takes to change a nation’s Googling habits?

MUHAMMAD ALI

The death of boxing legend and activist Muhammad Ali on 3 June caused a spike in Google searches looking for information of his passing, as well as inspiring quotes from the much-celebrated sports figure. Australia-wide searches peaked on 4 June for information on his funeral and his legendary fight against heavyweight rival Joe Frazier in 1971, which has since been dubbed The Fight of the Century.

POLITICS

The upcoming national election in July was all over Facebook in June, as Australians geared up for the polling booth on 2 July and made lots of noise online about who to vote for. As we discovered afterwards, the Australian public wasn’t to know the winning political party until eight days afterwards, on 10 July when Bill Shorten conceded defeat on behalf of the Labor Party. The next day, the ABC declared that the Liberal Party had won enough seats in the House of Representatives to form a majority government.

BREXIT

Brexit is the catchy name for the UK referendum that decided whether or not the UK would withdraw from the European Union. The poll caught the attention of Australians looking for news and updates on the decision that would ultimately see the UK vote to leave the EU 53.4% to 46.6%. Australians in Canberra, the Gold Coast and Perth were predominantly interested in the results, with related queries such as ‘Brexit vote’, ‘Brexit live’ and ‘Brexit poll’ being among the most popular. But not everyone knew what was happening on the other side of the pond – related term ‘what is Brexit’ also managed to get a look in.

GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK: UEFA EURO 2016

Australian followers of European soccer (otherwise known as ‘football’) have been active on Google since the start of the 2016 UEFA European Championship on 10 June. The international men’s football championship held the attention of Googlers in cities like Canberra, Newcastle, Sydney and Perth as search interest remained on par with the timing of each game. Top related search terms included ‘SBS Euro 2016’, ‘Euro results’ and ‘live Euro 2016’. ‘Copa America 2016’, the international men’s association football tournament that is hosted in the United States, was also a related search query. Young soccer fans on Facebook were also captivated by the sporting event.

GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK: FINDING DORY

Pixar and Disney’s latest cutesy offering, Finding Dory – a follow-up for 2003’s Finding Nemo – hit Google hard as would-be moviegoers searched for where and when they could watch the film (Hoyts, Event Cinemas and Village Cinemas were the most popular cinemas). Other Googlers also wanted to watch the trailer and read about the cast before committing to a date at the movies. Searches peaked the weekend of release, with another smaller peak the following weekend. Somewhat unsurprisingly, younger women on Facebook also showed interest in the release.

STATE OF ORIGIN

Game 2 of State of Origin, held on 22 June at Brisbane Suncorp Stadium, piqued the interest of Australians in the Northern Territory and the ACT in addition to usual suspects Queensland and New South Wales. Everyone wanted to know live updates on the score as well as what time they could watch the game on Channel 9 and Fox Sports. Queensland once again took down the Blues with a score of 26-16.

Want to add some fizz to your Search Marketing activity or your Social Media content strategy? Get in touch to learn how Sodafizz can help you reach your online marketing goals.