Social Media Stats: Summing Up The Super Bowl

Social media engagement during the Super Bowl last Sunday topped that of any major televised event, according to data from social activity tracker Trendrr, social TV analytic firm Bluefin Labs, and Crimson Hexagon. Largely from mobile devices, millions of people were checking in, posting, liking, or making comments or mentions about the game.

Here are the top social media stats from this year’s game (via USA Today):

1. Over 55 million instances of social media engagement during the game vs. only 17.4 million interactions in 2012 and 3.1 million in 2011 (Trendrr’s analysis included Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue and Viggle)
2. 30.6 million social media comments related to the game — 27.7 million via Twitter and 2.8 million on Facebook (Bluefin Labs)
3. Mobile communication was responsible for 88% of the social media chatter about the game; that’s 67% higher than last year (Trendrr)
4. New York and Los Angeles led the social media activity, followed by Baltimore and the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose region (Trendrr)
5. The Baltimore Ravens won the game — and the highest number of social media mentions (3.7 million), vs. the 49ers with 3.1 million mentions (Crimson Hexagon)
6. Tweets about Baltimore linebacker Ray Lewis totaled 1.2 million (one-third of overall tweets about the team); 67% of these were positive, 32% were negative (Crimson Hexagon)
7. 61% of posts about the 49ers were enthusiastic compared with 90% of posts about the Ravens (Crimson Hexagon)

Twitter emerged as the star social platform for advertisers during the game:  fully 50% of advertisements during the game mentioned Twitter, according to data from Marketing Land. This marked a big change from last year’s Super Bowl, when Twitter and Facebook both tied with only eight mentions each out of 59 national commercials.  This year Twitter rose to 26 mentions in Super Bowl commercials (a gain of 300%), while Facebook counted only four (a 50% drop). Here’s a look at the commercial mentions for the top 3 social networks:

For a full breakdown of what Internet Media Labs referred to as “pretty much the #Hashtag #Bowl,” check out this list of Super Bowl-related hashtags and the statistics for each. Big winners included Audi’s #BraveryWins, Coke’s #CokeChase, and #LiveMas from Taco Bell.

The 34 minute black-out during the game also provided a great opportunity for social media – check out of some of our favorite brand posts during that period: 8 Brands That Played In The Realtime Marketing Superbowl: Which Was Your Favorite?

And for those who wanted a different form of entertainment, Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl also scored high for social media engagement, ranking among the top 10 cable TV programs for the week with 512,690 social media mentions (Trendrr).

“They let their fingers do the talking,” sums up USA Today.  Were you tweeting and posting during the game?  What were your favorite social media moments?