Virat Kohli grabs the Golden Tweet of 2016 honor

The year 2016 has been sweet for Virat Kohli. His on-field achievements have been at peak and same success has brushed off in the public platforms as well. The number of people following Kohli has increased remarkably and has his conscious presence on the social networking site Twitter has earned him the Golden Tweet of the year honour.

Twitter, in its annual #YearOnTwitter report for trends in India, revealed that the most-retweeted tweet of 2016 or the Golden Tweet of the year was Virat Kohli’s tweet in support of Anushka Sharma that was re-tweeted over 39,000 times and liked by 1,07,117 users. He tweeted it to shame the people for trolling her relentlessly.

The most popular hashtag was #Rio2016 using which Indians celebrated the performance of Indian athletes at the Olympic games. It was followed by the #INDvPAK, #WT20, #INDvAUS and #MakeinIndia tags in the top five popular hashtag category. The most followed personality this year was undoubtedly Indian Prime Minister Narender Modi and had Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan and Aamir Khan are the other in the company of the Indian PM in the top five list.

Reacting to the Golden Tweet, Maya Hari, Managing Director, Twitter Southeast Asia and India said “Twitter is a reflection of conversations in India. There are good conversations and other conversations that happen. What was amazing to see is that Virat Kohli stood out as a great role model on Twitter in India standing up for a woman and the safety and defence of her on the platform.”

She added that what was also unique was that others on the platform reacted to the tweet by sharing it in support of good behaviour, showcasing the democratic nature of the platform.

The top moment on Twitter for the year was the announcement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s demonetisation scheme after which the platform recorded 6,50,000 Tweets in the 24 hours following the announcement.

Speaking about the report, Ms. Hari said “Twitter has given a voice to every Indian be it an influential user or an average user and has become a mainstream platform in our society. It gives a voice for every Indian to express themselves, feel connected to events emotionally and also be a part of the conversation that takes place around it.”

She said the the best way to describe 2016 on Twitter is that it has been a platform for people to see what is happening in their world as well as in the world right now.

“In 2016 India truly captured global momentum in two ways: Indians joined a lot of global conversations as well as started a lot of global conversations with demonetisation, pollution in Delhi or big cultural, sporting moments trending.

Ms Hari said a good example of how a global platform has become a platform for local issues is the way the conversation about pollution in Delhi played out with people sharing the day-to-day impact of pollution on their lives and moved the discussion along.

India, she added, is in the top five user-audience market globally for Twitter and with the help of initiatives like launching the platform in more regional languages it hopes that it people beyond the metro areas join the platform and more influential personalities also join.

Twitter hopes, she said, that though initiatives like #TwitterSeva, users will be able to get real-time updates for better public service.