The 2014 FIFA World Cup kicked off on June 12th and already is showing signs it’ll be the most-social sporting event ever globally. According to many studies, this year’s World Cup will surpass the Super Bowl and Olympics in total social mentions. The phrase “World Cup” alone generated 19 million social mentions across 200 countries in the 12 months before the World cup even began!
Japan tops countries with pre World Cup conversations across social networks with 37 per cent of all mentions, beating the UK (11 per cent), Brazil (nine per cent), Germany (eight per cecnt) and U.S (eight per cent). However, Germany has the highest social buzz as a percentage of total Twitter users (17 per cent) in its country, followed by Japan (11 per cent), Nigeria (eight per cent), France (five per cent) and U.K. (five per cent).
This level of buzz around the World Cup means only one thing, millions of people will be watching the live action and actively tweeting throughout the games. GlobalWebIndex found 87 per cent of UK Twitter users will be watching the World Cup on live TV and the vast majority (79 per cent) will be doing so with others, showing the sheer volume of tweets that could potentially be sent throughout the duration of the tournament.
Twitter has also seen negative views cast during the pre-World Cup build up, with 42 per cent of Brazilians expressing sadness, anger or disgust related to the World Cup.
That’s pre, but what are the numbers during?
According to Twitter data, the opening match between Croatia and Brazil generated 12.2 million related tweets and other early matchups sparked significant conversation on Twitter:
- Germany v Portugal : 8.9 million tweets
- Netherlands v Spain: 8.3 million tweets
- England v Italy: 7.2 million tweets
- USA v Ghana: 4.9 million tweets
Facebook has also seen high levels of social interaction around the World Cup, with it reporting that during the Germany-Portugal match people were talking, liking and commenting on it globally. There were more than 46 million Facebook interactions related to the Germany victory. And there were 15 million Facebook interactions by fans during the USA v Ghana match.
‘Goal’ traffic understandably tends to spike on social media. When @clint_dempsey scored in the first minute of the USA v Ghana match, it generated nearly 174,000 tweets per minute as fans around the world tweeted about it.
Social media heat map during World Cup:
MEC Says
With the evergrowing social platform’s continuing to evolve across the digital landscape, this trend is set to continue. Accessibility is making it easier to share views across social platforms. The real interesting point will be how social media evolves over the next four years, what platforms people will use to voice their opinions and how brands will choose to communicate across Russia 2016.
Thursday night was the opening ceremony of the FIFA World Cup 2014, with an impressive array of Brazilian flair headlined by Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull.
With a hint of disappointment lingering after the performance, due to issues with sound levels in the ground and on television, the football on display between hosts Brazil and opponents Croatia soon evaporated any concerns. The result, on paper, was an emphatic 3-1 victory by the Samba Kings; however a strong start and early goal from the Croatians caused the Brazilian fans to quieten down! Luckily for the hosts, golden boy Neymar was on hand to level the game (after a touch of fortune at the hands of the Japanese officials) and ultimately fire Brazil to a winning start.