The 2014 #YearOnTwitter in Australia

This year, people in Australia and across the world came together in moments of celebration, protest, mourning and joy. Many millions of you contributed to the moments and conversations that all unfolded on Twitter.

People send more than 500 million Tweets per day. Each one contributes something special to Twitter, but only one can be recognised as the “Golden Tweet,” a.k.a. the most-Retweeted Tweet of the year. No surprise that this year, the global honour goes to @TheEllenShow’s star-filled photo from the March Oscars telecast.

#YearOnTwitter in Australia
Australia, of course, has its own “Golden Tweet” which this year was Lorde’s Tweet* about a photo-shopped image of herself compared to the unaltered photo with a powerful message to her fans that “flaws are ok”.

Here are some more details of the #YearOnTwitter in Australia:

Top 10 peaks in Twitter conversations among Australians
Remembrance Day 2014 — marking the World War One centenary — saw the largest concentration of Tweets across the year locally – making this our number one fastest-rising conversation topic this year as many people observed and tweeted about the one minute’s silence at 11 a.m. on 11 Nov.

Politics continued to be a key discussion point, and as a nation of sport-lovers it is perhaps no surprise that half of the top ten peak moments were sport-related, while one of our most well-known exports, 5 Seconds of Summer (@5SOS) also featured twice in the top ten list.

Top 15 most-Retweeted Tweets from Australian Twitter accounts
The impact of Phillip Hughes’ death on the nation is clear, with Tweets about the tragedy making up one third of the top 15 most retweeted Tweet list. View the list here**:

Top 10 fastest-rising Twitter hashtag trends in Australia
Australians use Twitter to discuss and follow passion points, with the main ones reflected in the highest trending hashtags locally in 2014, including politics, news, sport and television.

Most followed and fastest growing Australian Twitter accounts
When it comes to the most followed Australians on Twitter, our many world famous entertainment superstars dominate, with each of them using Twitter to give their massive global fan bases greater insider access.

2014 also saw a number of new local stars burst onto the scene, both here in Australia and abroad, and mirroring this, their Twitter growth was huge!

Every year, there are thousands of what we call “Only on Twitter” moments - things that demonstrate the power of the platform and could have only happened because of Twitter. Here’s three from 2014:

The Queen photobombed Australian hockey player @_JaydeTaylor’s selfie at the #Glasgow2014 Commonwealth Games.

@Tim_Cahill tweets his reaction to Germany’s thrashing of Brazil at the World Cup, sparking a new craze - #Cahilling.

Twitter users come together to celebrate the life of Aussie cricketer Phil Hughes, with the moving tribute #putoutyourbats.

Global #YearOnTwitter on 2014.Twitter.com
To look back on the best global moments from the year, we’re unveiling #YearOnTwitter on 2014.Twitter.com. From Ellen’s Tweet to space travel and triumphant World Cup moments, if it happened in the world, it happened on Twitter. Here’s a peek:

• World Cup: The biggest sports story in 2014, especially on Twitter. Fans, players, teams and media sent over 672 million Tweets during the month-long tournament. At its peak, there were 618,725 Tweets sent per minute — the largest peak we measured this year — when Germany (@DFB_Team) took home the championship.
• #BringBackOurGirls: In response to a mass kidnapping in Nigeria, millions of Tweets were sent mentioning #BringBackOurGirls. This map visualises the hashtag’s global spread over a two-week period.
• #IndyRef: Scottish citizens used Twitter to say “yes” or “no” regarding a referendum on independence from the UK in the days leading up to the vote in September. This interactive map of geotagged “yes” or “no” Tweets shows the global nature of the conversation, which spread well beyond Scotland. From the first debate through polling day, there were more than 3.75 million Tweets about the referendum.
• #LokSabha election: The largest democracy in the world went to the polls that spanned 9 phases and six weeks. It was the first-ever #TwitterElection for India with nearly 60 million elections-related Tweets as you can see from this interactive map of Tweets for each party and candidate. @NarendraModi won the election to become the Prime Minister of India and his election-winning Tweet set the record for the most Retweeted Tweet ever in India.
• Hong Kong protests: When citizens of Hong Kong gathered to protest governmental electoral reforms, characterised by the hashtag #occupycentral, people over the world took to Twitter to add their thoughts. There were more than 2.3 million Tweets about what became known as the #UmbrellaRevolution. Here are the most shared photos, and here’s how the event played out on Twitter.
• #BlackLivesMatter: There were more than 18 million Tweets about the #Ferguson protests in August, as charted in this visualisation. In the hours following the grand jury’s decision in November, there were 3.5 million Tweets from across the U.S. Also tied to a similar grand jury decision in New York, this map shows how powerfully the hashtags #ICantBreathe and #BlackLivesMatter shaped the conversation on Twitter.

2014.Twitter.com also showcases the year from the perspective of some of your favourite (and most prolific) Twitter users. The list of featured users is below. From the site, you can also explore their #5toFollow to see their own must-follows.

• Lady Gaga
• J.K. Rowling
• Neymar Jr.
• Robert Downey Jr.
• Aaron Paul
• Henry Winter
• Gary Lineker
• Glenda Kozlowksi
• Eduardo Jorge
• Tim Howard
• Jared Leto
• The Duke of York
• Cheryl Fernandez-Versini
• Claudia Leitte

Finally, while Ellen’s and Lorde’s Tweets are the most “Golden” internationally and locally, there are countless others we won’t soon forget. Here are a few you might appreciate:

Whatever happens in 2015, Twitter will be the place for Australians to follow along in real time.

*We know Lorde is from New Zealand, but in true Australian fashion we’re claiming her!
**In the interests of variety, we’ve excluded Retweets of the boys from @5SOS - and there were a few! Here’s their top 20 Retweets: