IMS Corp, a digital marketing company in Latin America, published an analysis of the impact of the Brazil World Cup 2014 on social media and, among other things, they found that this will be a “real-time” sporting event.
This is due to a combination of factors including the rise of mobile devices in Latin America, improvements in mobile infrastructure and the fact that the sponsoring brands (Sony, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa, Kia, Hyundai, McDonald's, Budweiser and Johnson & Johnson, among others) have strong social network presence.
This report states that Twitter is the preferred social network for Brazil 2014 soccer fans and although most users will see the games on TV, they will use this platform to talk about the games and players.
And it's no wonder because 64% of soccer fans use Twitter more than any other platform to internationally circulate soccer commentary and at least 84% of Mexican Twitter users follow the sport, so we can conclude that the “real-time” predication will be a reality.
Another major phenomena of this World Cup will be the use of a “second or third screen” activities consisting of watching the game on TV while reporting and interacting through a smartphone and/or tablet. This undoubtedly will be one of the great marketing strengths to be exploited during this World Cup for which FIFA will not need to spend a dime.
Finally, IMS Corp reported that during the World Cup 2010 in South Africa 11 million tweets were sent during the event and the London Olympics in 2012 a 150 million tweets were sent. Although Brazil 2014 is estimated to produce many more, nobody dares to predict an exact figure. What's your guess? How many millions of tweets do you think will be generated by this World Cup? Leave me your comments below and start the debate.
One more stat: When Spain scored the winning goal in the last World Cup, it set the record for the longest period of social media sustained activity with 3,051 tweets per second.
Jorge Chavez is Senior Editor at Mijo! Brands of Mexico.