Google Shares the 100 Most Searched Products of 2022

Google has published its annual listing of the top 100 gift ideas, based on trending searches from 2022, including a range of product insights, trend tips and specific anomalies in Search behaviour over the past year.

Some eye-opening information in the report includes the trend in opting to grow plants without the use of soil, with search interest in Hydroponic Gardens rising by 350% over the last year.

Google also found that half of the shoppers use words like ‘stressful’, (54%) ‘exhausting’, (52%) and ‘overwhelming’ (48%) to describe their feelings about holiday shopping and therefore have allowed users to narrow down their search using filters like price range, on sale, material, colour or near you once they have found what would be considered the ‘perfect gift’.

Find out more here


The FIFA World Cup takes Twitter by storm

With the knockout rounds of the 2022 FIFA World Cup fast approaching, Twitter has shared new stats to show just how quickly ‘World Cup fever’ has spread amongst its users.

Out of the five most mentioned hashtags of the last week across the whole platform, hashtags related to the event appear three times, with #Fifaworldcup being the most mentioned hashtag on the platform.

Twitter stated that the event had 31bn interactions since the tournament kicked off a few weeks ago, whilst the platform also saw their total views on World Cup videos multiply by 10 during recent weeks. 

Find out more here.


Twitter Launches New Ad Targeting Options, Including Advanced Website Conversion Optimization

Just before Thanksgiving, Twitter announced some new ad targeting options with some important differences from its existing ad goals. This includes an update in its ‘Conversions’ objective, with advertisers now able to target their campaigns towards users that are more likely to take specific actions in response to the adverts.

Twitter has stated that their algorithms “will then target with greater relevance – at 25% lower cost-per-conversion on average, per initial testing”, using Pixel tracking to understand the types of people who are undertaking these actions on a website, then utilising that data to use for targeting further audiences for the ads.

This allows companies to analyse users based on their page viewing, content viewing, the products that they are adding to their cart and what their audiences are purchasing; alongside the existing features of the platform such as what links their audience is clicking, the sites they are visiting and the overall conversions.

Read more here.


Political Content is on the Decline on Facebook, According to the Latest ‘Widely Viewed Content Report’

Meta has released its latest ‘Widely Viewed Content Report’ for Facebook and the results clearly demonstrate that Meta’s effort to reduce the political content in the feed of its users has clearly worked out with much political-related media appearing high up in the list of the most popular content on the platform.

Instead of political media topping the chart, the most viewed piece of content on the platform was a report that Elon Musk’s mother sleeps in his garage which obtained 16.1m viewers. This was closely followed by an article about Millie Bobby Brown crying after being told she was ‘too mature for Hollywood’ and Lady Gaga going bankrupt after her most recent tour.

These stories show a shift in the content that is being interacted with on Facebook as they are the type of stories to make the front pages of magazines and thus show that these articles are clearly well received by the older audience of the platform

Read more here.


The newsroom is dead. What does this mean for your comms strategy?

The nation’s newsrooms are currently undergoing their most radical reshaping for generations. Here at Democracy we have put together an insight report investigating the impact of this shift on brands and the comms teams who work for them.

The report also outlines the key tactics we must now adopt to ensure we can keep building brand fame by telling stories that drive awareness, relevance and trust.

Click the link here to receive a free copy straight to your inbox.