03.11.16 | By Jason Smith —
The Research & Insights team at Spredfast started their SXSW early by taking a look at what people were talking about in the days leading up to the event. Unable to imagine how South By South West could get any bigger, the conference one-upped themselves and booked President Barack Obama as today’s keynote speaker.
Did the President manage to overshadow all the other voices competing for attention?
We expected the President to be the most anticipated figure speaking, but instead, we saw the same amount of conversation around Yoshiki, the co-founder of the metal band X Japan. A documentary about the group is being screened and Yoshiki is also performing.
The conference itself is also generating more buzz than ever before! In total, we saw 73,000 pre-SXSW tweets, a 30% increase from last year.
Let’s look at some of the top terms mentioned during #SXSW 2015 and see how they’re performing this year:
#RSVP exploded with nearly 3X more references than the year before. Many attendees may be promising to be in 2, 3, or even 4 places at once. We also saw #SXSWedu conversation increase year-over-year as the education-focused conference gains more traction.
Where is all this conversation happening?
Austin is absolutely the epicenter for #SXSW buzz, followed by LA, San Francisco, and New York.
Down here we look forward to making new friends and welcoming everyone en-route to our city. We’ll be back tomorrow with a recap of today’s events. What are you looking forward to most this SXSW?
Jason Smith is Senior Analyst, Spredfast
Spredfast is a DigitasLBi preferred partner