[1]The spread of social media at the Annual World Economic Forum 2012, in particular the use of Twitter, has extended the dialogue beyond the meeting rooms and corridors of Davos to the global community as evidenced in this first group of statistics:
- On day one, 459 delegates generated 4,436 tweets with 8,021 replies and 18,718 retweets. The top trending topics were ‘Angela Merkel’, ‘Europe’ and ‘People’ relating to #Davos.
- On day two, 440 delegates generated 3,312 tweets with 4,816 replies and 14, 302 retweets. The top trending topics were ‘David Cameron’, ‘Africa’ and ‘Social’.
“Commentary via social media has really taken off at—and beyond—Davos this year. It is no longer the preserve of economic experts or political figures, but rather, anyone with an opinion is able to share it with a global audience,” said Adam Bates, Global Head of Innovation at KPMG (Twitter: @AdamBates_KPMG [2]). “Not so long ago, the debates were the preserve of the few and most of us had to wait to hear about them. With the innovative use of social media it is possible to be in Davos without actually being there–meaning business and individuals alike have a chance to air their views on the issues that matter.”
WEFLive.com [3] has been monitoring the extent and nature of comments from non-delegates since debates began. The site also identifies tweets and tweeters by their level and style of influence. Signaling the growing influence of people without public office, to date public figures have posted 935 tweets—a figure almost matched by technology pioneers (920 tweets) and dwarfed by young global leaders (1,130 tweets). Daily summary infographics of Twitter trends at Davos are available online courtesy of KPMG [4].
Adam Bates continues: “For delegates, this presents a fantastic opportunity both to engage and gauge points of view. There is always a risk that issues may be hijacked, but with the proliferation of social media it is a bigger risk to refuse to get involved.”
The aggregated online service [3], presented by KPMG International exclusively for the WEF, distills in real-time the conversations from delegates who are using Twitter to share their views. Users can filter the conversation based on the annual meeting’s themes, speakers, delegates and other filters.