Facebook has released its hot topics report for October 2015 and one thing is absolutely clear from the stats - people had a lot to say about Halloween.
As shown in the above graph, Halloween was by far the most discussed topic of the month among US users, with the conversation skewing heavily towards younger females on the platform. That's an interesting slant, I don't know that it would be a common assumption that Halloween would be most popular amongst young girls - but this is the type of insight that Facebook's monthly hot topics report can provide, analysis that can help pinpoint such trends and shifts and prompt further investigation into topics which may be of future relevance for your brand.
The World Series was a hot issue among male users, with the Cubs and Mets generating the most discussion (despite the Royals taking the title). Meanwhile, excitement's building among younger males about the upcoming 'Star Wars' film - though the anniversary of 'Back to the Future' also got the attention of this group.
There are a couple of other interesting anomalies within the stats here:
- Conversation about 'The Walking Dead' was dominated by young female users
- There were very few subjects that gained a heap of attention from older users - noticeably fewer than in previous months
- MAC Cosmetics is generating attention amongst young women.
Other resonant topics included Adele's new single "Hello", Thanksgiving (particularly among older female users) and concerns about the health of former NBA star Lamar Odom.
The conversation peaks were generally where you'd expect - Halloween discussion spiked at the end of the month, World Series posts peaked during the event.
While the mention volume here aligns with overall trends, it's still interesting to compare when those discussions rise and fall among the different demographic groups, and how product mentions fit into the wider trends.
Facebook has also produced hot issues reports for Australia, the UK and Canada - in summarizing the most discussed issues from those regions for the month, Facebook notes that three topics captured the attention of all the geographic audience subsets:
October 9: "Steve Jobs" release date. The Aaron Sorkin film about the Apple co-founder and 2-time CEO was widely released in the first half of the month, sparking conversation around the globe.
October 21: "Back to the Future" Day. This is the day Michael J. Fox's character Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd's character Doc Brown time-travel to in the sequel to the 1980s sci-fi classic "Back to the Future."
October 31: Halloween. People, especially women, around the world celebrated this day more than all others in the month.
There were also region-specific discussions that generated significant attention; in the UK, comedian (if you can call him that) Karl Pilkington's new program fuelled Facebook discussion; in Canada, the election of Justin Trudeau as the nation's new Prime Minister was widely discussed; while in Australia, the Rugby World Cup, in which the Wallabies ultimately lost out to New Zealand's All Blacks in the final, was a hot issue amongst Aussie Facebook users.
Facebook's monthly Hot Topics reports are a great source of insight into what people are talking about on the platform and can help marketers better formulate outreach and ad strategies based on what's resonating, with whom and when, across Facebook. Using this, brands can better plan to stay up with trends or even shift their market focus to reach audiences more interested in their messaging.
The full Facebook Hot Topics reports for October are available here