The Most Discussed Issues on Facebook and Instagram in June [Infographic]

Facebook’s IQ insights blog has undergone a facelift in recent months, which has delayed the publication of their latest ‘Hot Topics’ report, but they’ve now published the data for June, highlighting the key issues and topics garnering the most mentions across The Social Network last month.

The Hot Topics reports are a great reference point for those looking to optimize their campaigns – not only do the reports show you what was being discussed, but who by, in terms of general demographics (male/female, younger/older).

Most of the key subjects are as you’d expect – major holidays get a lot of mentions, major news events – but the additional insight of how each is resonating within different audience subsets is valuable, and might help uncover a key topic for your target market you hadn’t considered.

So what was gaining traction on Facebook in June?

As you can see, Father’s Day was the dominant topic of discussion – major seasonal events generally dominate the conversation chart, underlining the role Facebook now plays in our communicative process.

But outside of that, there’s a heap of smaller trends and shifts of note:

• The dominance of sport and video game-related topics in the younger male segment
• The popularity of Flag Day amongst older women
• The resurgence of Harry Potter amongst younger female users
• The universal appeal of Wonder Woman actor Gal Gadot, right in the middle

Not all of these trends will be relative to your business, but there are various interesting angles to consider, which may help focus your marketing efforts.

Over on Instagram, it was, again, fairly similar.

As is normally the case, there are more entertainment-related mentions on Instagram, but interesting to note mentions like ‘American Hiking Society’ in the older female sector of the chart, and the presence of ‘Gay pride’ right around the middle, similar to Facebook. Could this be an indicator of shifting societal perspective?

And as always, Facebook has also provided Hot Topics charts for:

Australia

The UK

Canada

As noted, the Hot Topics report is always worth a look – even if you’re absolutely confident you know and understand your target market, there are always smaller trends and shifts within the data that come up, and may help refine your campaign focus in order to generate better response.