What does the World Cup 2014 and social media have in common? They are both popular internationally. That is one of the cool things about social media is that you are easily able to connect with millions of people regarding the same topic, in this case organized sports, while actually cheering for the same or different team. But what does this have to do with why social media is important to your business? Because you can hop on the bandwagon, get creative and join the conversation that is already being had on social media.
The Twitter homepage has changed to give live scores of the games being played that day and links to the teams’ individual Twitter pages. There are millions of tweets happening in a day regarding the World Cup 2014. The opening match received 12.2 million tweets! Creating your own hashtag for your company geared towards the games will gain attention for your company if done correctly. Adidas did this by creating the #allin hashtag which encouraged fans to be “all in” and remind how much dedication it takes as a player to be “all in.” This hashtag coupled with famous soccer players has led to a hashtag success!
If anybody goes on the internet, it is a well known fact to them that Google has daily doodles on its search page that is commonly themed by certain holidays, famous people or events. During the World Cup 2014 games, we have seen different doodles that encourage Google users to read up on the World Cup. When you click on the doodle it then gives you the results page of Googling World Cup 2014. We know that Google isn’t a social media site, but it is too cool not to share.
World Cup 2014 has taken Facebook by storm. The social media site reported the sports event has had more Facebook interaction on June 12-18 than the interaction of Super Bowl XVIII, the Winter Olympics and the Oscars combined. There were over 400 million interactions on Facebook about the 2014 World Cup. Facebook created a special feed for all of the information that you need to keep up on the World Cup called Trending World Cup.
The popular soda company Coca-Cola created a campaign around the games. This includes creating a commercial, maintaining multiple Facebook pages regarding World Cup material and initiated the world’s largest photomosaic flag. This flag that is featured on Coca-Cola’s Facebook page, made its debut in the opening of the first World Cup game in Brazil. The flag has millions of pictures of people from around the world. Facebook is a great platform to share video and other media content to millions of users. Sharing and connecting is why social media is important to your business.
YouTube
Youtube is a great platform to share your company’s videos under your company’s account. Nike is a great example by creating a video that is current with what the viewers want. Football. Well, soccer if you are in the United States but the point is that the World Cup is on almost everybody’s radar regardless of what country you are from. Nike’s video “The Last Game” has had over 54 million hits since it was published on June 9, 2014. Pretty impressive right? If your company creates a video that is clever, relevant and entertaining, this can increase the number of subscribers to your YouTube account.
Now that you have an understanding to why social media is important to your company, take a look at how the different companies are currently keeping up with the World Cup craze to satisfy its customers. There are some pretty creative ideas that have been put into internet marketing campaigns that seem to be successful. Is it time for your company to join that list?
