Biggest Social Media Spectacle: FIFA World Cup 2014

By Gaurav Pradhan

FIFA World Cup 2014, the biggest football sporting spectacle event, became even bigger in Social Media Sphere. This went on to become The Biggest Social Event in Web History, surpassing last year’s Super Bowl. The Final game between Germany and Argentina generated 280 million interactions by 88 million users on Facebook, crossing the previous set milestone of 245 million interactions by Super Bowl last year. This match also created a storm with more than 618,000 tweets per minute in Twitter, which resulted in a total of 32.1 million tweets.

The whole tournament resulted in a massive 3 Billion posts, likes and comments in Facebook by 350 million people. Twitter also showed record numbers as #WorldCup recorded 672 million tweets.

FIFA, the International Body for soccer, mentioned that more than 1 billion people were engrossed with World Cup related content through its social media accounts, mobile apps and website.

The Official FIFA went on to be the biggest sport-event app till date, with a humungous 28 million downloads. FIFA page reached 451 million Facebook users. Instagram account also witnessed a surge in followers from 42,000 to almost 1 million in a month.

The most surprising fact was the interest shown by United States, where Soccer isn’t the most popular sport.

During the Final match between Germany vs Argentina, 10.5 million users from U.S engaged on Facebook, despite of early depart of USA from the tournament. Till USA’s stint in World Cup, 36.7 million U.S. fans used the World Cup’s online page and other social media accounts. This was really interesting as 11.2% of U.S. population accounted for 23% of the total activity during that period. In total, 42 million U.S. fans used FIFA’s web properties throughout the tournament. Putting the numbers in time period – U.S Web users spent a total of 847 years and 143 days using with FIFA content. This is even more than the total time put together by the soccer-crazy fans of Brazil, Germany, England and France combined.

This clearly shows the love and enthusiasm of U.S. towards sports, showcasing the kind of popularity to FIFA World Cup 2014.

There are some interesting statistics related to World Cup by Twitter

The Most Talked about Matches on Twitter

1. Brazil vs Germany, Semi Final 1, July 8 – 35.6 million tweets
2. Germany vs Argentina, Final, July 13 – 32.1 million tweets
3. Brazil vs Chile, 1^st Match Round of 16, June 28 – 16.4 million tweets
4. Netherlands vs Argentina, Semi Final 2 – 14.2 million tweets
5. Brazil vs Columbia, Quarter Final 1, July 4 – 12.4 million tweets

Biggest Peak generating Moments on Twitter (Tweets Per Minute)

1. Germany defeating Argentina to win World Cup Final, July 13 – 618,725 TPM
2. Germany’s Sami Khedira scoring Goal with assist by Mesut Özil vs Brazil, July 8 – 580,166  TPM
3. Germany’s  Mario Götze scoring the match-winning goal in Final, July 13 – 556,499 TPM
4. Germany’s Toni Kroos scoring his second goal vs Brazil in Semi Final, July 8 – 508,601 TPM
5. Germany’s Toni Kroos resulting the score to 3-0 vs Brazil in Semi Final, July 8 – 497,425 TPM

Most Mentioned Players in Twitter

1. James Rodríguez (Columbia) (@jamesdrodriguez) – 1,456,126 mentions
2. Neymar Jr (Brazil)(@neymarjr) – 1,210,548 mentions
3. Mesut Özil (Germany) (@mesutOzil1088 )– 616,075 mentions
4. Luis Suárez (Uruguay) (@luis16suarez )– 330,009 mentions
5. Cristiano Ronaldo(Portugal)(@Christiano) – 223,399 mentions

Most Popular Players on Twitter

1. Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) – 26.5 million followers
2. Neymar Jr.(Brazil) – 10.7 million followers
3. Wayne Rooney (England)– 8.8 million followers
4. Andrés Iniesta (Spain)– 8.7 million followers
5. Gerard Piqué(Spain) – 8.4 million follower

Leading Brands also leveraged on this Social Media event and riding on the wave. Adidas become the most talked Brand with its #allin or nothing campaign represented strongly across Twitter, Youtube, Facebook , Instagram and Tumblr. Nike was second in the race followed by Coca Cola and Sony.

This explains the Successful Integration of Brand Marketing with Social Media. Big events like this help increase the brand recognition and content adding to the credibility of the brand.

The records created by FIFA World Cup 2014 are going to stay for a while. With advent of technology, world going mobile and new users getting included in Social Media, next FIFA World Cup looks more promising.

(Author is a Management student of IIM Bangalore having an experience in Manufacturing Industry, Follow On Twitter @GauravToYou)

Also Read:

World Cup was biggest social media event ever – Facebook, GMA News – http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/371531/scitech/socialmedia/world-cup-was-biggest-social-media-event-ever-facebook

World Cup becoming biggest social-media event ever – CNN – http://edition.cnn.com/2014/06/23/tech/social-media/world-cup-social-media/

IBM and Apple, A US $ 50 Billion Market Partnership: ‘Beauty’ with ‘Brains’ to Rule Enterprise Business- Social Media Trend- https://www.socialmediatrend.in/technology/ibm-and-apple-partnership-beauty-with-brains-to-rule-enterprise-business/