England fans from the north-west are planning to spend a massive 1,840 hours – the most for any area in the country – communicating and posting photos via social media during the World Cup, according to new research.
Fans of Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton, Burnley and Wigan will be their cheering on 42 of their own club players during the event and according to a survey carried out by Digital Clarity, an online marketing agency, most England supporters channel of choice will be Twitter (41%), followed by Instagram (32%) then Facebook (21%) and Others (6%). The survey polled over 1,500 supporters under 35 years of age from England, Scotland and Wales
Surprisingly, England fans from the north-east came second in ranking on the number of hours they intend to spend (1,132) on social media during the tournament, despite no players from the region being chosen for the Three Lions (although Bryan Oviedo (Sunderland) is in the Costa Rico squad and Aleksandar Mitrovic (Newcastle United) should play for Serbia). England supporters from London came third in the social media league table even though they can boast 8 players in the national squad with another 34 expected to feature for their respective countries.
London fans strongly favour Twitter over Instagram with over 43% planning to use the social media platform to follow England’s progress during the finals.
With neither Scotland or Wales qualifying for the World Cup this time round, the Scots are intending to spend just 980 hours on social media and Welsh fans even less with 875 hours.
World Cup 2014, held in Brazil, was widely recognised as the first ‘Social Media World Cup’ with more people sharing comments, pictures and videos over social media than any other event in history. The most talked-about game of the World Cup was not the final, but Brazil’s 7-1 defeat by Germany in the semi-finals. On Twitter it attracted 35.6m tweets during the game. The figure is a Twitter record for the most-discussed single sports game ever. The most tweets per minute came during the World Cup Final. The one-nil result saw 618,725 tweets per minute – another record for the social network.
The survey results are very telling according to Reggie James, MD of Digital Clarity: “We’d expect England fans with the highest number of players involved to be the most engaged on social media during the World Cup but it was surprising for the north-east, the region with one of the least, ranking highly. However, it is a traditional hotbed of support.
“From a feed point of view, we expect Twitter to be the most used when fans are actually watching games but for Instagram to be the fastest growing network this year and to take the social media lead before and after matches with supporters looking to share unique visuals more and more.”
World Cup fever is reaching boiling point across the UK with traditional news and media outlets feeding the need for people to engage. The BBC and ITV are running countless competitions, programmes and nostalgic video, alongside their Social Media Counterparts. Furthermore, the World Cup is being seen as a life saver for the much beleaguered high street as many financial pundits predict a boon for the likes of Curry’s PC World, Domino’s Pizza, delivery outlets to feed fans and furnish them with even larger flat screen TVs.
Global brands are already lined up to take advantage of the huge worldwide audience and are deliver their messages when the opportunity arises. James concludes: “The top branded image of the World Cup 2014 came from Snickers, after Luis Suarez after was caught biting Italy defender, Giorgio Chiellini. Snickers took advantage of the moment by sharing an ad for their chocolate bar on Twitter and Facebook with the tagline “More Satisfying Than Italian.” Alongside the ad they wrote: “Hey @luis16suarez. Next time you’re hungry just grab a Snickers. #worldcup #luissuarez #EatASNICKERS.” In less than 24 hours, the image was re-tweeted almost 35,000 times and received 3,250 likes.”
Regions intending to spend the most hours using social media during the World Cup with amount of players in the England squad and players representing other countries.
1. North West – City (4) 12 United (4) 8 Liverpool (2) 5 Everton (1) 2 Burnley (1) 1 Wigan (0) 1 7 hours
2. North East – Newcastle (0) 1 Sunderland (0)1 6 hours
3. London – Chelsea (2) 11 Spurs (5)7 Arsenal (1) 7 West Ham (0) 4 Crystal Palace (0) 1 Fulham (0) 0 Millwall (0) 2 QPR (0) 1 Brentford (0)1 5.5 hours
4. South East – Southampton (0) 4 Brighton (0) 2 Watford (0) 1 Reading (0) 1 Bournemouth (0) 0 5 hours
5. West Midlands – Stoke (1) 4 Wolves (0) 2 West Brom (0) 2 Aston Villa (0)3 Birmingham (0) 1 5 hours
6. South West 4 hours
7. Yorkshire and the Humber – Huddersfield (0)3 Hull (0) 3 Leeds (0) 1 3.5 hours
8. East Midlands – Leicester (2) 6 Notts Forest (0) 2 3 hours
9. East of England – Ipswich (0) 2 2 hours
Overall intended use of social media platforms by England fans during the World Cup
1. Twitter 41%
2. Instagram 32%
3. Facebook 21%
4. Others 6%
Top three World Cup regions by social media platform
1. Twitter (North West 38%, North East 40%, London 43%)
2. Instagram (North West 34%, North East 33%, London 31%)
3. Facebook (North West 22%, North East 24%, London 21%)
4. Others (North West 6%, North East 3%, London 5%)
Source: www.digital-clarity.com