Game of Thrones Season 7 is finally here and, as always, the Brandwatch React team could not wait to get our hands on the data surrounding reaction to the premiere.

This year we’re tracking mentions of each episode across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to see what moments and characters jump out in the data.

**SPOILER NOTES: We won’t go into the details of what happened in each episode but we’ll tell you which characters were mentioned most. If you want to avoid that, we’d suggest coming back later. Our analyst for this data doesn’t watch the show before putting together these blog posts and goes out of her way not to spoil anything for herself, so if you spot any clues as to what occurs in the episode they’re purely coincidental and accidental. Alright, disclaimer over. You’ve been warned.**

Dragonstone: Top line stats

  • We tracked 97,590 mentions of the show as it aired between 9:00 and 10:02pm ET on Sunday 16th July
  • The biggest spike in mentions came at 9:09pm, with 4,270 mentions in a single minute
  • 53% of gender-categorized authors were female, 47% male

You can check out our social data run-downs of all of the episodes so far this season here:

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The non-specific highlights

It was interesting that the top-mentioned moment wasn’t the opening scene. Usually when there’s a hotly anticipated show being released these first few moments garner the largest spikes as people talk about their excitement for the return. It’s what happened last year.

Instead, while the opening moments saw big volumes, it was a spike at 9:09pm that saw the largest volume of posts per minute (4,270 in this case).

By the looks of it, the biggest moments will occur in the first 15 minutes, followed by another mention-boosting event around 9:40pm. Brace yourself for those.

Arya Stark, queen of social

Character-wise, Arya Stark emerged as by far the top-mentioned character. She was followed, somewhat strangely, by Ed Sheeran who had a cameo in the episode.

Daenerys Targaryen and Reddit’s favorite Jon Snow were third and fourth.

Five of the top tweets during the show

Quiet in the realm.
“Dragonstone" starts now. #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/lTnKRazzLn
— Game Of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) July 17, 2017


*game of thrones theme song starts*
me: pic.twitter.com/9ACUxPnrjd
— brunna (@obicwan) July 17, 2017


This is me right now…. #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/oxTEvZKcOt
— Game of Thrones Memes (@Thrones_Memes) July 17, 2017


So that's where Gendry went! #GameOfThrones pic.twitter.com/bPnF0MAxX0
— Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 17, 2017


We're already spooning and ready for tonight. #WinterIsHere pic.twitter.com/kABtjQylTs
— Zach Braff (@zachbraff) July 16, 2017


Want more Game of Thrones data?

Our coverage of Game of Thrones data spans years, and we have a huge archive of season and episode-specific data available throughout our website. Our engaging data visualizations will also be covering season 7 as it progresses. (Note: You may notice some subtle differences between how the visualizations look and the charts in blogs – we’re using slightly different methods of tracking character mentions).

You can also take a look at our recently released Game of Thrones infographic that we released alongside Dr. Jillian Ney. It analyzes a million Reddit posts to find the most loved, overrated and underrated characters and more.

Still want more? You can download our case study on how Brandwatch helped DDB and Sky inspire New Zealanders who had previously dismissed the show to get excited about the upcoming season.

If you’re a journalist looking to cover our data email us at [email protected] for more information