Everything you need to know about the International Women’s Day 2020 on social

5 min read

8th of March is a date celebrated as a holiday in some countries. In other countries, it is widely ignored. What’s so special about that date? From 1977, 8th of March has been celebrated by the United Nations as the International Women’s Day.

Although the world now looks completely different from the world in 1977, many people are still fighting for equal treatment of men and women. With the development of social media and the Internet, the fight has partially moved from the streets to various online platforms.

If you want to know what people are fighting for, what and who inspires them, you should take a look at the online chatter.

To show you the latest insights and trends, we set up a media monitoring project that collected mentions containing keywords:

  • International Women’s Day
  • IWD 2020
  • #eachforequal

The last keyword is an official hashtag for the Women’s Day celebration.

We also took a deeper look at the top public profiles we participated in the discussion around the topic.

Here’s what we found out!

The context of a discussion

Let’s start the analysis with the context of a discussion.

The context of a discussion in every project will give you a general understanding of the context in which the keywords you monitor appear online.

It is not a thorough analysis, but the context of a discussion will give you a general understanding on how people discuss your keyword online.

Let’s examine the context of a discussion for the keyword “International Women’s Day”.

The most often used words are bigger and greener. Once you click on the keyword, you will be redirected to all the mentions containing both terms.

The terms used most often were:

  • #eachforequal
  • #generationequality
  • happy
  • gender
  • celebrate
  • women in stem
  • thank

This compilation gives you a general idea of the content you will see in the project.

Once you have a general idea on what the online buzz looks like, it is a good idea to take a closer look the mentions itself.

That way, you can prove or disprove your initial hypothesis.

The volume of mentions

It is not surprising that almost all online posts for the International Women’s Day are published on the 8th of March.

You can distinguish a couple of types of content around IWD2020.

First of all, there are general wishes from social media users. Many wishes their female friends, mothers, wives, and daughters simply a fantastic day.

Companies larger and small are trying to benefit commercially from the IWD.

Their efforts are not always met with enthusiasm.

This year, Apple met with heavy criticism for trying to benefit from the International Women’s Day.

That’s a lesson to be learned for other companies — ads based on international holidays must be developed with care. Focus on promoting the values, not the brand itself.

International Women’s Day is a holiday originating in the socialist movement. Some of the posts reflect the political origin of the holiday.

Many social media users note the problem of unequal pay, femicides, maternity rights for self-employed women, or the effects of climate change on the women rights.

All of the issues are clearly important for many Internet users.

While in some countries activists discuss the issues of equal pay, in others many have to fight for the right to celebrate the International Women’s Day.

That was the case in Turkey:

And Kyrgyzstan:

The United Nations is using the holiday to promote women’s work in some countries. This year, the organization was celebrating remarkable Lebanese women.

Who talked about the IWD 2020?

We already know what was said about the International Women’s Day. Now, it’s time to see who was discussing the holiday online.

Let’s analyse the most popular mentions first.

The social media post with the highest number of likes and comments was posted by the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi.

The politician vouched to give away his social accounts to women whose lives are an inspiration.

The campaign was accompanied by the hashtag #SheInspiresUs and featured many active and inspiring women, for example, Sneha Mohandoss, the founder of the Food Bank India, or Aman Sharma, a journalist for the Economic Times.

It is a bit ironic that all the work, in the end, boost the account of a male prime minister.

Do you know what always sells online?

Pictures of cute animals!

The International Women’s Day was no different. The second most popular mention featured the dog of Irish prime minister.

The next spots were finally reserved for women talking about women, including the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, and Lady Gaga.

That was the list of the most popular mentions. We also analysed mentions from the most popular public profiles.

From the analysis, you can clearly see that the most popular profiles are run by women.

Katy Perry firmly holds the first place with a tweet that reached more than 100 million users.

The list of the most popular public profiles engaging in a discussion about the IWD 2020 also include Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lopez, the profile of the FC Barcelona, Kylie Jenner, and Alicia Keys.

Is the IWD an interesting topic for news outlets?

The International Women’s Day is widely discussed in traditional media outlets as well.

The Economist, a newspaper, was discussing the IWD on its social media accounts.

The online discussion generated a 7.88% share of voice. That is the percentage of all online discussions was generated by the social media account.

The Economist was closely followed by Reuters, Apple, and the Times of India.

We can explain the popularity of Apple’s social media account by its failed ads.

The popularity if the Times of India is directly linked with the decision of the prime minister to give away his social media accounts for one day.

The International Women’s Day conversation

The International Women’s Day is still a hot topic. The conversation around the IWD includes big brands, social media users, celebrities and influencers, and news outlets.

The conversations centred around different topics, ranging from genuine wishes and ending with very political statements.

The IWD is one of the holidays that generate a lot of buzz online, both positive and negative. If you want to tap into the conversation, take a look at industry leaders and learn from the best.

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