• by Larissa Faw , February 23, 2015

Last year, Ellen DeGeneres' celebrity-filled selfie nearly broke the Internet with more than 779,295 re-tweets in a half-hour. This year, by comparison, the Academy Awards was not as popular online, according to Amobee Brand Intelligence.

The night's biggest winner was Lady Gaga, who garnered 577,143 social mentions, 38% positive. Amobee attributes her social media popularity to her homage to Julie Andrews and the Sound ofMusic, her massive fan following and classy appearance.

It all added up to put her at the right place at the right time with the right message. 

After Lady G, social media chatter surrounding other Oscar-related celebrities dropped immensely. Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris received 219,375 social mentions, 34% positive, and it seems his performance was not as beloved or discussed as much as that of last year's host DeGeneres. 

Best Supporting Actress winner Patricia Arquette came in third with 168,930 social mentions, 48% positive. 

Amobee reported that midway through the last hour of the Oscars telecast on ABC viewers turned from discussing trivialities, such as appearance, to talk about social good and women’s rights, thanks to Arquette who argued for equal pay during her acceptance speech.

As a result, the top trending association for the Boyhood actress was "equality," followed by "wage, speech, and rights." The movie that led to her speech ranked as her 10th association.

Other celebrities attracting attention via social media were Julie Andrews with 149,742 social mentions, 42% positive and Common with 117,441 social mentions, 47% positive. There were 23,229 Tweets around Jared Leto's #Oscars2015 appearance in one minute with “Jesus," "Prom" and "Tux” as his top associations. 

Social good was the theme of the night with civil rights receiving attention thanks to the night's nominee Selma. Selma's best song winners Common and John Legend combined for 137,441 social mentions - with sentiment at 49% positive - as a result of their performance and acceptance speech.

Suicide prevention was another issue that got a surprisingly significant amount of discussion during acceptance speeches, per the Amobee analysis.

"We should talk about suicide out loud" was the message from director Dana Perry after she won Best Documentary short for Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press. Screenwriter Graham Moore followed up her comments later that evening when he discussed his own suicide attempt at age 16 during his acceptance speech. All told, there were 36,800 social mentions around suicide prevention during the Oscars broadcast. 

Alzheimer's generated social media chatter with Best Actress Julianne Moore's win for Still Alice, which focused on the disease. Moore generated 64,764 social mentions and there were 8,040 mentions around Alzheimer¹s Awareness during the evening. 

For the most part, there appeared to be fewer opportunities for brands to align themselves with the ceremony in ways that really popped. The brands that did receive attention did so primarily through earned media.

Oscar nominee Lego, for its Best Song, Everything is Awesome, generated the most interest at 476,881, 45% of it positive and 14% negative. Dove earned 29,250 social mentions around the brand and its #speakbeautiful hashtag, with sentiment around the brand and hashtag at 91% positive. In fact, there was a 400% rise in mentions for Dove during the two hours before the Oscars at the red carpet preview, almost entirely online and organically generated. 

Looking at the share of voice between the top five brands around the Oscars, 45% of the real-time discussion was around Lego, while 28% of the discussion was around Dove, with 12% around Coca-Cola, 11% around Samsung, and 6% around McDonald's. 

Last year's big social media winner Samsung (one of the brand’s smartphones was used to shoot the aforementioned DeGeneres selfie) only received 11,502 social media mentions, with 23% of that positive and 9% negative.