By Brittany Oat
In the 2010 FIFA World Cup it’s not Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo who are the biggest stars. No, it’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube…and the fans sitting at home using those tools to get so close to the game they might as well be in South Africa.
We’ve seen social media make huge leaps for Barack Obama’s election day victory and the death of Michael Jackson, but it’s nothing compared to the 2010 FIFA World Cup (officially deemed the largest event in social media history). Just look at Twitter- it set a record of 3,283 tweets per second during a tournament! If we could put a sound on the cheers being tweeted I bet you it would be a thousand times louder than the noise in the stadium.
Facebook is seeing similar activity. Fans are celebrating on the thousands of pages created specifically for the 2010 World Cup, teams and players.
So, it’s not surprising that major brands are using this as an opportunity to get some relatively inexpensive playing time. Nike, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Visa and others are having their own competition…who can get the most benefit from the World Cup buzz
. Visa has done well on YouTube with their “Go Fans” campaign. You know, those semi-annoying videos where a fan lathered in face paint yells GOOOOOAL for about 20 seconds? People can even enter their own video on the site. Coca-Cola is using similar strategies.
Going forward, the social media explosion around large athletic, political and cultural events will only continue to grow. Fans, teams, brands, social media sites will all benefit from this. The only real losers I see in the 2010 World Cup are the traditional media outlets.