The latter half of the month of July 2023 was filled with a variety of narratives including pageant coronations, natural disasters, sports events, and the second State of the Nation Address (SONA). Capstone-Intel Corp., a research organization concentrated on achieving insights and actionable intelligence outputs from data, has collated ten topics that topped online trends from July 16 to July 31, 2023. The findings are ranked based on the engagement score, which is computed by a formula that factors in both the number of comments and reactions, multiplied by 0.1 and the number of shares.
TV series dominate the top spot in the most talked about topics in the Philippines. Filipinos spend 4.9 hours per week watching television with consumers stating they spend 95 percent of their time watching TV every month. Abot Kamay na Pangarap, a Philippine television drama series broadcast by GMA Network based on Abot-Kamay ang Pangarap (1996) by Carlos Siguion-Reyna, garners over three million engagements online—making it the number one most talked about TV series on local television.
Following closely with an engagement score of 10,403,059 are sports. Volleyball is easily one of the most popular sports in the Philippines. It is ranked by the UAAP as the second most-watched event after basketball. Basketball does not place itself until past third place among the most talked about sports topics though. For the first time in history, the Philippines qualified for the FIFA Women’s World Cup via their 2022 AFC Women’s Asian Cup semifinal finish–crediting football with a total of 1,101,410 engagements with words like “fifawwc”, “labanfilipinas”, and “parasabayan” topping this July.
Third place goes to TV shows; their differentiating factor from TV series is that they only have a single season compared to a series having multiple seasons. With an engagement score of 2,748,859.00, GMA Network, Inc., a Philippine media company primarily involved in free-to-air television and radio, is the number one sought-after source for local TV shows.
K-pop continues to hold its near-obsession grip over fans in the Philippines leading the aesthetic-driven pop music genre to amass almost a total of three million engagements in the local scene. Pop star giants like J-Hope, V, and Suga have racketed engagement numbers in the hundreds of thousands. But with an engagement score of 1,640,778, the South Korean member and vocalist of BTS–Jungkook bags the spot of the number one most talked about K-pop personality online.
In fifth place, we can see influencers of social media making their mark online with a total engagement score of 2,497,591. As Facebook continues to be the most popular social media platform among internet users in the Philippines, with even news organizations resorting to using the live streaming application for broadcasting content, “facebooklive” is easily a common word used online. With the availability of streaming services and local netizens’ desire to keep up with GMA TV shows, “kapusostream”, “kapusostreamlive”, and “kapusolivestream” gained over 150,000 engagements.
Just past half of the list are recent events in the country, garnering a total engagement score of 1,913,785. As the country yet again enters the wet season that brings with it seemingly endless days of wind, rain, and gloomy days, typhoon Egay (international name: Doksuri) emerges as the most-talked-about topic in the country’s recent events. Just recently, the typhoon made its landfall and caused billions’ worth of damage, especially in the country’s central and northern regions. Following this event closely is the president’s second SONA, which took place on the 25th of July 2023, a day before the typhoon made its landfall.
SB19, the country’s homegrown PPop group, dominates the seventh spot, with an engagement score of 1,027,183. With their growing fanbase and certainly increasing appreciation and acknowledgment from the country’s mainstream media industry, this multi-talented group continues to hit the charts. Much of the keywords related to SB19 pertains to their Pagtatag World Tour.
Taking the eighth spot is the list of the most-talked-about actors and actresses. Among these personalities, actor, and politician Congressman Arjo Atayde and host and actress Maine Mendoza collectively take the top spot, with an engagement score of 521,100. This is after the couple tied the knot on July 28, 2023 at a chapel in Baguio City.
Just above the end of the list are the trending brands in the country, with Lazada taking the top spot, garnering an engagement score of 145,901. As the month of July comes to a close, shoppers must have expected end-of-month sales while anticipating the infamous number-number sale in the month of August.
To cap off the list is Miss Supranational 2023, which took place on July 14, 2023. Although the country was not able to bring home the bacon, flags were still raised for the country’s contender Pauline Amelinckx who bagged first place. Meanwhile, Andrea Aguilera from Ecuador brought home the title.
To learn more about trending topics online, be sure to check out Capstone-Intel Corp.’s website: https://www.capstone-intel.com/
