​Top Of The PR Pops: April

From a big-name boxing match to the fighting talk of Westminster, April 2015 truly was a month of battles. And for PR and comms people alike, we’ve had a field day observing and analysing the events as they’ve unfolded, and indeed, the outcomes.

We know that social media is transforming the ways in which information is received and shared, but this became even more apparent over the past few weeks...

Mayweather vs Pacquiao

To say that Mayweather vs Paquiao was big on social media would be an understatement. It was huge. Twitter in particular. 

It was Mayweather, the undefeated champion, who came out on top yet again, receiving over 3.4 million mentions during the fight – almost two million more than his opponent. Engagement peaked shortly before the final punch, with mentions reaching 92,000 per minute! 

But retweets and viewing figures weren’t the only numbers that were high in this fight as Mayweather is expected to have pocketed the modest sum of £82,000,000!

In other numbers, 2.48 million people around the globe paid to watch the fight, although they could have saved themselves a cool £70 by tuning into Periscope – the live streaming service exclusive to Twitter. Ouch.

#GE2015

Social media played a big part in generating awareness and sparking debates about parties and their policies.

Labour found an unlikely brand advocate in comedian Russell Brand following a risky but beneficial interview vlog. Their social efforts, however, perhaps weren't as strategically thought out. Their Facebook profile was populated with posts which explicitly asked users to "Like if you're voting Labour" and "Share if you agree". Meanwhile,  Conservative's PR and comms team reportedly spent thousands on social advertising in the build-up, cleverly targeting current voters, floaters and the undecided. UKIP, on the other hand, threw caution to the wind, asking Twitter users to #AskNigelFarage. Well...you can imagine how that went down.

Just how much of an impact their social media efforts had is more difficult to measure, but given the outcome it would seem that the hundreds of thousands of pounds spent by the Tories paid off...

And in other news...

Googling for pizza?

A foodie's dream partnership (well...mine), Google has teamed up with six takeaway services in the USA and now gives users the opportunity to order food directly from its search results.

This follows Google's recent roll-out of song lyrics and health related information, and they've said there's "more to come". It'll be interesting to see where Google takes the new search results next...