Q1 2023

The chart opposite shows just how dominant tech news was over the course of the year, with even the lowest week of engagement to tech stories coming in higher than either of the other two categories that we looked at, not to mention a peak of more than 4x higher than the others. 

This was reflected in the total number of engagements too, with the tech category having more than a billion total engagements to coverage about it, in comparison to ~436 million for cars/auto, and around 271 million for food & beverage.

Some of this was actually driven by the tech companies themselves, as shown by the chart opposite, which has Samsung’s newsroom appearing several times among the top ten articles mentioning tech brands. Apple also featured thanks to its Apple Music subdivision, while HBO Max sharing the streaming premiere of ‘House of the Dragon’ also saw a huge level of engagement for the streaming platform. 

This shows the obvious correlation between tech and culture in 2022, as almost every tech giant now has at least one foot in some kind of entertainment division — from Apple Music to Netflix to Amazon’s Prime Video and Alphabet’s YouTube. 

Among the other top articles, TikTok featured prominently, particularly driven by the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial, which saw supporters and critics alike taking to the app and seeing huge engagement for their analysis of their very public trial. 

In this section, we’re going to spotlight five of the biggest and most written-about tech brands in the world — the group is formerly known as the FAANG stocks of Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google. We’ll also devote a spotlight to TikTok as the new kid on the block.

This was driven by two key news events in September, with the launch of the new iPhone and Brazil banning sales of iPhones until chargers were included as part of the sale. Elon Musk’s public criticism of Apple in November was the key driver of the November spike in interest.

Apple Music was a driver of engagement too — particularly driven by BTS, who continue to be a force on Twitter even after the group split up.

This was led by Eatwell101, a popular recipe website whose content performs especially well on Pinterest. EatWell101 was responsible for six of the top 10 articles about food and beverage and had the most engaged article overall with a baked salmon recipe that earned nearly 2 million engagements. 

There were no mainstream publishers among the top articles, as the other four to make the list came from different food blogs, with The Nibble and Detoxinista’s articles also seeing more than 1 million engagements.

The crisis for Burger King began when the company was accused of not appreciating its employees after giving a man a goodie bag after 27 years of work. As a result, the public raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the employee, which the media quickly reported on. 

All of the top five articles about Burger King were about the retirement faux pas, and you can see a huge spike in public interest in the graph opposite as it eclipsed all other news. 

This is unsurprising, especially given how cars are an essential part of everyday life for most Americans. Some coverage did mention specific brands when talking about the news, whereas sometimes cars were just mentioned as part of a broader narrative — often about gas prices or things happening while people were driving. 

Even with this lack of brand coverage when writing about cars, interest in cars and trucks was far lower when compared to tech, which truly dominated the public’s interest this year. 

This interest peaked in April when rumors of Musk taking over Twitter first hit the headlines, and Tesla was linked to Musk’s actions repeatedly over the course of the next several months. 

There was then a political narrative that took place once Musk officially took over, with some criticizing Tesla while Musk made Twitter-based headlines after taking over in Q4 this year.