In 2020, UK audiences engaged most with sponsored content, while France’s top trend was fashion and style. Japan’s focus shifted to luxury and safety, Germany saw a surge in homeware content, and the US highlighted the prominence of sponsored ads and social justice movements like #BlackLivesMatter.
Published On: December 16, 2020
Utilising Wearisma’s powerful analytics tool we have identified the trends which dominated conversations among online audiences in the UK, USA, France, Germany and Japan in 2020.
With the rise of new social media platforms such as TikTok and more people becoming the role of a content creator due to the pandemic, the number of influencers is rising faster than ever, and therefore, so are more paid ads on socials. Wearisma’s analysis reveals that #ad drove the highest engagements among UK audiences in 2020. The top content featured brand @thredup, an online thrifting destination where you can shop and sell to fight fast fashion waste. Today, with climate and equality being at the forefront of more people’s minds, consumers are less interested in fast fashion and instead more interested in a sustainable fashion future.
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Continuing on from last year, #ootd and #fashion dominated conversations among French audiences in 2020 and ranked in the top 10 most engaged hashtags. One of the top-performing posts (by engagement) came from Fashion influencer and YouTuber Lena Situations shares her #ootd tagging @wethenew, an upcoming streetwear company which received 14% Engagement Rate from her 2.7M followers, reflecting that audiences in 2020 are mostly interested in discovering and supporting small businesses.
#Stayhome saw a huge spike of 35M engagement over the month of April 2020 in Japan, during the first lockdown, being in the top 5 of engaged hashtags in 2020. Luxury fashion brand @louisvuitton is featured among the top performing content within this hashtag. A Louis Vuitton handbag featured in a post by established Japanese influencer Takanori Iwata who encouraged his 2.8M followers to #stayhome. The post gained an engagement rate of 12%, 4 times the average for Japanese fashion content suggesting that audiences in this region were interested in ways to showcase their luxury pieces while keeping safe during this turbulent year.
While #travel was one of the most engaged hashtags among online audiences in Germany in 2019 it unsurprising dissappeared from the top spot in 2020. Instead, online audiences shifted their focus to renovating their homes. Wearisma’s analytics tool revealed that homeware content saw a whopping 120% increase in Engagements between January and April this year. Engagements in hashtag #interiordesign have gradually increased consistently throughout the year of 2020 to 25M engagements, demonstrating that homeware brands should play particular focus to this region.
Similarly to top no.1 engaged hashtag in the UK, #ad is also no.1 in the USA. With American TikTok sensation Addison Rae leading top engaged ads on TikTok, an example being with Just Dance Moves which received an above-average Engagement Rate of 70%.
#blacklivesmatter was the 3rd most engaged in 2020 among US online audiences. Throughout 2020, people from across the world including in over 2,000 cities and in all 50 US states have been protesting, demanding racial equality and social justice in the wake of the 2nd wave of the Black Lives Matter movement. These findings highlight how significant of a role social media played in spreading these messages in 2020.
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