Over 52% of Pinoys support, discuss lent online – data
A social listening report from Capstone-Intel revealed that a week after the start of Lenten season in the country, Filipinos flocked to social media to showcase their faith and influence other Filipino social media users about the significance of the season to the catholic-majority country. Capstone-Intel is a high-impact research company that uses innovative research technologies, tools, and methods to convert data and information into breakthrough insights and actionable intelligence outputs. It is committed to helping its clients solve problems, find solutions, grow markets and constituencies, build reputations, navigate risks, manage crises, and be the country’s leading private research and intelligence agency. Background More than a week ago, on February 14, 2024, Catholic countries and believers who devoutly follow the Roman Catholic traditions, started their 40-day long lenten season. As a catholic-majority country, the Philippines has been at the forefront of strictly following the tradition from fasting, and abstinence, up to the observance of activities leading to the Easter Sunday. Methodology Capstone-Intel Corp. examined the online presence of Lent in the country as a topic of discussion for two weeks, from February 13 to February 27, 2024, by utilizing all publicly accessible posts from social and non-social media platforms in order to gather the sentiments of the public about the catholic tradition. Facebook Performance Capstone-Intel found that Lent garnered a 516,974.0 engagement score for its 4,779 total post count, which yielded over 2,147,276 total reaction count. The bulk of the engagement score and total post count were all attributed to the observance being posted by supporters and other influencers, which heightened the lent’s social media presence across the country. When broken down, “Facebook love” accounts for 52.4 percent of the total reactions, with 1,124,713. Followed by “Facebook love” with 1,019,747 reactions (47.5 percent), “Facebook haha” with 941, “Facebook wow” with 770, “Facebook sad” with 753, and “Facebook angry” with 352 reactions. Looking at the data, the majority of “Facebook love” and “Facebook like” reactions can be attributed to several Filipino social media users showing excessive support for the observance of the tradition as reflected in the top posts surfacing online. Online mentions Capstone-Intel likewise revealed that “Lent” received 76.5 percent positive mentions, and the remaining 23.5 percent were negative mentions. This means that the article mentions about the actress were mostly angled positively. On the other hand, It is also worth noting that the season received 148,634,152 social media reach, while its non-social media reach yielded over 128,276,859 non-social media reach. Top posts In terms of top posts, the top post for the Lenten season was a Facebook post from Catholic Fundamentalism posting a promotional story about the significance of Lent among Catholics. This story received a 35,316.8 engagement score. The rest of the top posts for the Lenten season indicate the important role of the season in the spiritual lives of Filipinos. The intensity of the posts on the topic demonstrates Filipinos’ continuous discussion about lent and why it matters for the country and the individuality of Filipinos. It shows that despite the emergence of various practices that might affect the religiosity of Filipinos, most of them remain practicing and showing their faith on social media.
