It’s World Cup time! I’m originally from England – the home of soccer or “football” as we call it – so this is a big deal in my sporting calendar.
I grew up in Newcastle upon-Tyne in the North East of England where many people live, sleep and breathe the local football team, Newcastle United – although, I’ve always preferred watching England play because I like to feel a bit patriotic and we’re not patriotic enough in my home country!
The FIFA World Cup in Brazil is set to be the world’s most mentioned event ever on social media – far surpassing the Super Bowl and the Sochi Olympics – according to a study by Adobe Systems.
The words “World Cup” alone have seen 19 million social mentions across 196 countries since June 2013 – this is more than the total social mentions during the entire tournament in South Africa four years ago.
U.S. viewers are expected to be a small percentage of the conversation, with only 7% of Americans planning to follow the tournament closely, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey. This isn’t surprising because other sports are far more popular here. However, with TV networks set to screen every game, it will be interesting to see if people here do get caught up in the World Cup fever and these statistics prove to be higher.
Social media channels are fueling the World Cup buzz in ways we didn’t see during the South Africa tournament, too.
Twitter has gone all out for it, incorporating a ‘hashflags’ feature which allows users to tweet an emoticon of a country’s flag, as well as a set of new, algorithm-driven timelines for fans. While Facebook has launched a Trending World Cup page (see above) which features an interactive map of over 84 million fans so far and includes a special feed with real-time updates and posts.
Whether you decide to watch it or not, you might find it difficult to login to social media channels and not see something World Cup-related. And if you end up watching an England game, please cheer them on – we’ll especially need support if the game goes to penalties (we have the worst record in shoot-outs)…
