This year’s World Cup football tournament is the first event in Facebook’s history to break the 1bn mark when it comes to interactions between users, the social network has revealed.
The figure was achieved thanks to 220m of Facebook’s estimated 1bn-plus users who have been enthralled from 12-29 June by the 2014 edition of the biggest sporting event on the planet, Facebook said.
With the World Cup having surpassed the half-way stage, the Facebook developers said the event has been unprecedented in terms of the scale of conversation surrounding it, which may come as no surprise to football fans who have seen some of the biggest incidents to hit the sport in recent years, particularly Uruguay’s Luis Suarez and his bite of Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini.
Pointing out one example, Brazil’s match against Chile in the round of 16 had more than 31m people giving 75m interactions throughout the match, and Facebook was able to identify the different demographics involved.
For this instance, men aged 18-24 in Brazil dominated the conversation, with the two most commonly discussed players being Brazil’s Neymar and Chile’s Alexis Sanchez.
Another contributor to the increased traffic has been attributed to Neymar again, as his and other Brazilian players have kept their fans updated through Facebook. One recent post featuring Neymar and his teammate Hulk generated 2.5m likes and 70,000 shares.
