Fifa World Cup: Twitter vs Facebook shootout

The Fifa World Cup Final created Twitter history by generating 618,725 tweets per minute, but Facebook did it better.

The world’s largest social media platform revealed 88 million people had more than 280 million Facebook interactions, including posts, comments, and likes, related to the World Cup Final between Germany and Argentina.

This match also broke the record for the highest level of Facebook conversation for any single sporting event in history; Super Bowl XLVII on Feb 3, 2013 came in second with 245m interactions.

Interestingly, the majority of fans contributing to this record weren’t from Germany or Argentina, but instead the US with 10.5m people interacting from the neighbouring continent to South America, where the matches were being played.

Facebook recorded 10m interactions from host nation Brazil, while 7m from Argentina and 5m from Germany, led the social media trend.

The Facebook Men of the Match who received the most global buzz were similar to that of Twitter, with the goal scoring German midfielder Mario Götze and Golden Ball winner, Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

However, the top names shifted a bit between the two media platforms, with Germany’s Thomas Müller coming in at second place as the most popular player of his team last night, followed by Miroslav Klose, Mesut Özil and Bastian Schweinsteiger, in that order.

Twitter saw German goalkeeper Manuel Neur take the second spot, with Christoph Kramer coming in third after his dramatic head injury.

Meanwhile, on the Argentinian side, Javier Mascherano came in at number two, followed by Gonzalo Higuaín, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Sergio Agüero, respectively.

The final moments

According to Twitter data, last night’s game set a new record or 618,725 tweets per minute (TPM), beating the record set in the Germany-Brazil match with Sami Khedira’s goal in the 29th minute launching a landslide 580,166 TPM.

The moment came when Germany was announced the match winners, which triggered a volley of tweets globally from fans.

Similarly, Facebook’s top ‘Social Moment’ emerged as the final whistle blew, crowning Germany as World Champions for the fourth time.

Rounding up the top five social moments included Götze scoring from a Schürrle cross to give Germany a 1-0 lead deep in extra time at the 113th minute; in third place was Messi’s free kick over the crossbar at the 120th minute.

Messi being awarded the Golden Ball award as the tournament’s best player post match came in fourth place, while Higuaín’s Argentinan goal disallowed as being offside in the 21 st minute came in at five.

However, Twitter data also revealed 32.1m tweets were sent out during the World Cup Final match.

Numbers game

According to Facebook demographics, men between the ages of 18-24 years were the top players on the social media platform on the night, followed by men between 25-34 years.

Coming in at third place were the women between 18-24 years, followed by the women again between 25-34 years.

Men between the ages of 35-44 brought up the top five.

According to Facebook’s regional figures, the platform has 68m monthly active people in Mena, of which 48m are on mobile.

Meanwhile, people check their Newsfeed on average 14 times a day.

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