Of the 255 recognized countries or territories in the world, 230 of them have generated at least one mention of the 2014 World Cup on social media, according to the Adobe Social Index (ADI). On average, 350,000 Tweets are being sent out per day mentioning the World Cup. The opening game, Brazil vs. Croatia, is expected to draw over 3 billion viewers, which is around half the world’s population.
Why is social media brand coverage so important during this event? In a 90-minute game, only 17 percent of that time is dedicated to commercials, which are easy to skip or avoid with today’s technology. Meanwhile social media represents a constant flow of information throughout the game, and some of that information is guaranteed to be advertising.
The phrase World Cup has amassed 19 million mentions on social media since last June. Most likely because of this, Adidas is spending more on digital marketing than it is on television ads this year. Tom Ramsden, the global brand marketing director for Adidas football, had this to say about the World Cup: “This will undoubtedly be the most social World Cup ever and probably the most social event in history.” The top 20 most shared World Cup ads have already out-performed the top 20 Super Bowl commercials earlier this year.
Christian Ronaldo, the world’s most popular athlete on Twitter, tweeted out a Nike YouTube commercial to his 26 million followers recently. The results were staggering. The video has reached over 75 million views since it was uploaded less than two months ago. Shakira’s World Cup hit La La La has been viewed over 97 million times in under two weeks.
Google is also taking advantage of this event’s global popularity by creating a World Cup website that will show live updates and what’s trending in one convenient spot. As you can see from the picture below, each match has people’s reactions in real-time on social media regarding each team.
FIFA.com has a fantastic social media hub that shows you live feeds from all of their Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages. If you want a visual of how popular the World Cup is on social media, check out this recent Facebook post that garnered close to 15,000 shares and almost 150,000 comments in less than an hour.
Not all the buzz on social media is positive. Brazilians are particularly angry about the cost of this month-long event. It is believed that Brazil has spent over $11 billion in preparing for the World Cup. Protests even erupted hours before opening ceremonies. Police tried to diffuse angry demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets near one of the stadiums.
How do you plan on staying up-to-date during this highly anticipated event? Let us know in the comments.
