If the tournament was judged by activity and support online, SM2 reveals that Germany would be holding the trophy
After the celebrations of Sunday’s game die down in Madrid and our lives begin to get back to normal, we turn our eye away from the TV screen to a multitude of online sites, to assess what has been happening off the pitch over the last month.
In today’s digital world, with a plethora of smartphones and internet enabled devices, increasing amounts of people are consuming and sharing information across social media platforms – so unlike any other World Cup that came before - excitement around these games was not only happening in the bus queue, at work or in the pub – it's increasingly happening online.
Alterian’s SM2 social media monitoring tool can track online noise and sentiment across an infinite number of social media and online channels and tracks sources across all countries and languages – a key differentiator to all other online monitoring services. The analysis is taken from the opening ceremony right through to the final whistle and tracks noise levels in relation to country internet usage, rather than one overall figure, as clearly a US vs New Zealand or UK vs Ghana comparison would not be a fair match ;) Throughout the games, SM2 tracked a total of 1870085 conversations online.
Check out who fared well and those who didn’t! And assess the in-country variations of social media usage and platform preference....
Summary of findings:
- Germany displayed the most positive sentiment online and the least amount of negative feeling, with Germany being the only word to be pulled out of the wordless, to suggest it was the most talked about country throughout the World Cup, even beating the hosts, South Africa. They also ranked 4th in terms of volume of conversations by the end of the games
- However their grumpy neighbours in France were not quite so supportive it seems and clearly didn’t react well to the French knockout, with the least percentage of positive comment and having the highest negative sentiment (28%)
- Most of those countries that got through to the final 16 were reflected by the highest levels of conversations online. However generally Ghana, Paraguay and Uruguay were all fairly low ranked even though they were all in the semis – this is most likely down to the low internet usage in these countries rather than lack of support
- Despite this – Uruguay’s support did improve from rank 23 at the start to 17 at the end (reflecting their 4th position)
- Surprisingly, Argentina came in a low 27 in terms of conversation volume overall - despite the national focus on football, getting to the semi finals and having an average internet usage of 20,000,000
- South Africa has average internet usage (ranked 18 here) but has high noise density (ranked number 1) and the third highest percentage of positive comment (30%)– clearly reflecting the support of the games from the proud host country
- Most noise occurred across microblogs (including Twitter), with 40% of all conversations
- FriendFeed was identified as by far the most popular site for Footie chatter, with a total of 29430 (next highest was just 6944)
- Twitter went crazy around the opening ceremony and then dropped down to a fairly consistent level throughout but remaining the most popular site to share news and opinions of the games
- Conversation levels consistently dropped throughout the games as we saw more teams being knocked out and more disheartened supporters
- SM2 suggests that the games are predominantly still a man’s game with almost ¾ of posts from men - 70% men and 30% women
- As you’d expect – most comments were posted by 18-34 year olds – who are the most active online users and well as the age group most likely to follow football
Further breakdown:
Who’s been talking where?
- Brazilians clearly use blogs to communicate and share info online (52%), whereas France like a more in depth analysis and insight through forums (40%)
- Noise on facebook or other social networking sites was very low (highest was 11% of US noise and only 0.2% of UK chatter)
- Similarly low is photo/video sharing sites – most common around the World cup in Italy (9%)
- Twitter (microblogs) have well and truly become the most popular way to share info online with by far the highest scores – especially in Japan and South Africa (87% and 84% respectively) 41% of Brits talked about the World Cup on twitter but the French are clearly not adopting Twitter to the same extent as they don’t even appear on the scoreboard
- Top 5 international sites where conversations have been happening:
- FriendFeed
- bukaji
- live stream online
- MP3BarWCnews (MP3 Bar WorldCupNews)
- FIFA World Cup 2010
What’s the sentiment?
- Germans across the board posted the most positive comment (68% at the end, 51% at the start and overall 59%)
- Spain were close second on positive comment (48% at the end) for obvious reasons
- South Africa were also on the largest positive list, being the hosts
- At the end of the games, after the negative French, the Netherlands fared the most negative (clearly reflecting the final disappointment)
- We Brits were fairly low down on the positive stakes (dropping slightly from 20% at the start to 17% at the end)
Supporter scoreboard (conversation volume across countries):
Top teams at the end of the World Cup:
- South Africa
- United States
- Netherlands
- Germany
- United Kingdom
- Spain
Top teams at the start of the World Cup:
- United States
- South Africa
- France
- Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- Spain
Top teams throughout the World Cup:
- South Africa
- United States
- France
- Germany
- Netherlands
- United Kingdom
- Spain
Bottom teams on the board:
- Algeria
- Slovakia
- Nigeria
- S Korea
- Serbia
Lowest internet usage:
- Ghana
- Honduras
- Paraguay
- Cameroon
- Cote D'Ivoire
For more information about this research, or to learn how to use SM2 to analyse social media conversations, simply contact us .
>> Alternatively, click here to download the full research now
About Alterian
Alterian (LSE: ALN) enables organizations to create relevant, effective and engaging experiences with their customers and prospects through social, digital, and traditional marketing channels. Alterian’s Customer Engagement solutions are focused in four main areas: Social Media, Web Content Management, Email, and Campaign Management & Analytics.
Alterian technology is utilized either to address a specific marketing challenge or as part of an integrated marketing platform, with analytics and customer engagement with the individual at the heart of everything. Working alongside a rich ecosystem of partners, Alterian delivers its software as a service or on premise. For more information about Alterian visit www.alterian.com or the Alterian blog at www.engagingtimes.com .