In the final few minutes of extra time yesterday Germany scored a goal to defeat Argentina in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. It goes without saying that there was significant buzz about the final match on social media, particularly the two biggest networks, Facebook and Twitter. Ever since the tournament began last month these networks have played a pivotal part in facilitating online conversations about each and every game. Yesterday was no different though the final ended by breaking records across both networks.
Facebook revealed that the total number of interactions by its users, which includes comments, posts and likes about the World Cup final, exceeded 280 million. Over 88 million users interacted on Facebook during the final making it the most discussed sporting event on the world’s largest social network. This title was previously held by the 2013 Super Bowl but the World Cup final blew it by 35 million interactions.
The final happened to break the most tweets-per-minute record on Twitter. The previous record was set in this World Cup as well when Germany thrashed Brazil 7-1 in the semi-final. Twitter saw 580,166 tweets per minute during that semi-final. Towards the end of the final that record was broken as 618,725 tweets were posted in a single minute.
Twitter did gear up for the World Cup ever before it started by creating hashtags for fans that would automatically take the form of their teams’ flags. It even gave them the ability to use a pre-made avatar to support their teams. The Germany Brazil semi-final still holds the records for most tweets sent during an entire match, 35.6 million as opposed to 32.1 million during the entire final.