Twitter in 2014: One Direction dethroned by World Cup as kings of social network
The World Cup was easily the most talked about thing on the platform this year
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Your support makes all the difference.One Direction and their fans have long ruled over Twitter, after adopting the platform early, but even that wasn’t enough to stop the World Cup becoming easily the most talked about thing on the platform this year.
All but two of the biggest events of 2014 were football games, six of which were in the World Cup. Germany’s 7-1 win over Brazil in the World Cup semi-final was the most talked about event, followed by Wayne Rooney’s goal to equalise for England against Uruguay and Daniel Sturridge’s equaliser against Italy.
One Direction’s winning the Best British Video award at the Brits, in February came tenth, and the New Year was fourth.
But One Direction’s Harry Styles managed to score the most retweeted message from a UK account — his tweet celebrating four years of the band was retweeted more than 359,000 times. That also made it the ninth most retweeted message in the world.
One Direction and its members also dominate the UK’s most followed list — with the band and its members taking five of the top ten spots. (Niall Horan, the group’s only Irish member, would take the fourth spot if he were counted.)
Most of the rest of the UK’s most followed is made up of musicians, with Emma Watson and the BBC’s Breaking News account the only non-musicians in the top 10.
Much the same is true of the top 10 most followed accounts in the world, which is headed up by Katy Perry, followed by Justin Bieber and Barack Obama.
The full list of the world’s most followed accounts is:
- Katy Perry - 61m
- Justin Bieber - 57m
- Barack Obama - 51m
- Taylor Swift - 48m
- YouTube - 47m
- Lady Gaga - 43m
- Britney Spears - 40m
- Justin Timberlake - 38.5m
- Rihanna - 38m
- Instagram - 36m
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