The world has been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the royal baby with the suspense broken when Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge emerged from St. Mary’s Hospital with their newborn son.
While most blogs focused on what Kate was wearing, whether the baby was properly strapped, and how happy the parents are, we take a different look at this event by examining twitter traffic before and after the royal couple emerged from the hospital.
131,000 #RoyalBaby tweets were sent between 7PM and 835PM on Tuesday the 24th of July. Tweets were averaging 1,400 per minute until the the couple stepped out at 713PM resulting in a frenzy of tweets peeking at 5,399 per minute. Surprisingly the excitement was short lived and the number of tweets declined steadily to reach an average of 600 per minute from 8PM.
The most influential tweeters are the usual suspect. With the exception of E-Online, most have refrained to mostly one tweet.
Tweeter | Rank | Tweets | Num Followers | Num Friends |
YouTube | 1 | 1 | 30,910,916 | 30,910,916 |
RyanSeacrest | 2 | 1 | 10,805,628 | 10,805,628 |
KhloeKardashian | 3 | 1 | 8,313,368 | 8,313,368 |
BBCBreaking | 4 | 1 | 6,562,822 | 6,562,822 |
PerezHilton | 5 | 1 | 6,179,433 | 6,179,433 |
eonline | 6 | 12 | 5,498,294 | 5,498,294 |
twitcam | 7 | 2 | 5,440,423 | 5,440,423 |
CNNEE | 8 | 2 | 5,282,379 | 5,282,379 |
lilyrosecooper | 9 | 1 | 4,168,600 | 4,168,600 |
BBCWorld | 10 | 1 | 4,053,597 | 4,053,597 |
This contrast to the more enthusiastic top tweeters:
Tweeter | Rank | Tweets | Num Followers | Num Friends |
Morufkeji | 1 | 72 | 118 | 41 |
yoelyuk | 2 | 32 | 37 | 37 |
AnjaAntiope | 3 | 31 | 60 | 60 |
Lilianazm_ | 4 | 26 | 575 | 575 |
The Top Tweets are:
Tweet | Retweets |
First picture as Duke & Duchess of Cambridge leave hospital with #RoyalBaby http://t.co/c4XQIFLhx2 & http://t.co/pzcoOSJtN0 | 4,802 |
Dear William & Kate: Your son is the Half-Blood Prince. It only seems fitting to name him Severus Snape. #RoyalBaby | 2,019 |
#RoyalBaby #ProudQueen http://t.co/ynxKvu3WJL | 1,056 |
How phenomenal is this picture! Awww #PolkaDotPerfection #RoyalBaby http://t.co/orNfK2qd6l | 994 |
Omg how amazing does Kate look? Such a cute moment 🙂 #RoyalBaby http://t.co/yC1msYiuik | 954 |
The ultimate tribute to Princess Diana by Kate Middleton #beautiful #royalbaby #touching #princess #wishshewashere http://t.co/KLqA12ImbQ | 948 |
Awwwwwwww!!!! #RoyalBaby http://t.co/fLg2rOXtcF | 748 |
Honestly, I am more impressed with Kates blow-out than the #RoyalBaby which looks just like a human baby. But that hair! | 718 |
Kate introduces her son, just as Diana did – polka-dot dress and all #royalbaby http://t.co/J6kBW8yUC6 http://t.co/CvjGtJyLOn | 590 |
The #RoyalBaby has made his debut and he is PERFECT. Just look at this precious first photo! http://t.co/lhzaaVZhlI | 570 |
Most retweeted picture is courtesy of the BBC, click to check it out.
Top words featured in tweets are Kate (27,500), baby (19,121), William (14,297) and prince (12,210)