SINCE all of us have been glued to a screen at one point or another during this pandemic, we’ve all contributed somehow to this year’s selection of top tweets — presented in a webinar by Twitter last week.

Taking home the country’s Top Retweet and Most Liked Tweet was singer Sam Smith’s tweet about a Filipino boy singing at a karaoke machine. The tweet, posted on Feb. 8, read in capital letters, “Who is this kid!!!!!? You are out of this universe whoever you are.” This tweet garnered 8,100 replies, 313,600 retweets, and one million likes.

Other notable tweets included a sketch of a snail by Twitter user @titsay, with the snail saying, “Slow progress… is still progress.” @titsay captioned the tweet, “Do not be too hard on yourself.” This account had 138,000 retweets and 344,900 likes. A tweet by user @akarri promoted body positivity, showing common microaggressions towards Filipina bodies. This tweet had 123,000 retweets and 173,000 likes.

A saga about an online dating catfishing scam, a thread by user @JzanVern posted on March 30, was the country’s most “Quote Tweeted Tweet” with 197,500 retweets, 245,300 likes, and 12,100 replies.

Meanwhile, celebrities ruled the roost for the most tweeted hashtags for this year: pop group #sb19, love team #mayward (about Maymay Entrata and Edward Barber), #mainemendoza, #morhot, #maymayentrata, #aldenrichards, #donkiss, #edwardbarber, #kissesdelavin, and #karjon. Most of the celebrities’ main accounts on this list also entered the list of the Most Tweeted-about Accounts. For sports, athletes Ricci Rivero and CJ Cansino’s conversations trended and placed them at Top 1 and Top 2 for the Most Tweeted-about Sports Account in the Philippines. Third, Fourth and Fifth Placers were NBA teams the Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, and the Golden State Warriors.

Meanwhile, Twitter launched its #BestofTweets 2020 Philippines Awards to celebrate brands that created outstanding campaigns. These included the HomeSURF199 campaign for Globe, while Smart Communications, Inc. was awarded Best Brand Voice. The Andok’s chicken chain was awarded for Best Use of Video for the #ChibokNgPasko campaign, which featured actor Piolo Pascual. The Best Brand Launch on Twitter was given to Gatorade Ion’s campaign with brand ambassador Kathryn Bernardo, and Jollibee’s Valentine’s Campaign, #KwentongJollibee, was named as having the Best Connection to Culture.

The 10 most tweeted-about brands in the Philippines were (in descending order) Spotify, Netflix Philippines, Apple, Shopee Philippines, Google Philippines, Lazada Philippines, Grab Philippines, Samsung Philippines, Pepsi Philippines, and PLDT.

“In this time of upheaval, there was no rule book to go by, or tried and tested method to keep audiences engaged. Instead, brands and marketers have had to roll with the punches and learn as the year evolved. This meant really listening to and connecting with their communities, before reaching out in an authentic and genuine way. We’ve been humbled and inspired by how brands throughout the region have leveraged Twitter to tap into conversations and cultural moments. And as we look to the New Year, it’s clear that community building will only increase in importance,” said Arvinder Gujral, Twitter Managing Director, Southeast Asia, in a press release. — JL Garcia

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