Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc released a barrage of data, special "heat" maps and slick animations on Monday to claim the title of most-popular social network for spectators watching the Super Bowl, but a winner was difficult to pick.
Facebook, the world's largest social network, boasted that 65 million people chimed in on its service about the match that saw the New England Patriots edge the Seattle Seahawks 28-24, up 30 percent from the year earlier. Facebook even rolled out a new metric: The "people per minute" who joined in during the game's most intense moments.
Twitter declined to provide the number of users on its service during the game, but reported that they tapped out 28.4 million game-related tweets, compared with 24.9 million during last year's matchup between the Seahawks and the Denver Broncos.
The battle of the statistics highlights the stiffening competition among Internet services to establish themselves the go-to "second screen" for big events from the Super Bowl to the Oscars, and to capture a bigger slice of the brand advertising dollars that accompany such events.
"It used to be all about having this incredible Super Bowl commercial," said Linda Lagos, digital brand director at PepsiCo . Now, she said, "You can't have a campaign without social media."
A marching band and cheerleaders drummed up energy for a social media "war room" of about 40 people at Pepsi's interactive ad agency, the Barbarian Group.
When Katy Perry, headliner of the half time show sponsored by Pepsi, entered the arena on a gigantic gold robot tiger, the team blasted out an animated cartoon of a cat riding a stuffed lion.
Lagos declined to say which platform Pepsi preferred but said her company considered itself a winner because 94 percent of social media comments about Pepsi and the Super Bowl were positive.
Twitter, which has roughly one-fifth the users that Facebook does, has traditionally been the dominant place for real-time conversations online. Facebook, the world's No. 1 Internet social network, is increasingly trying to attract real-time conversations on its service.
Facebook could be "the king of real time" if it was able to immediately highlight reaction to events, Gartner analyst Brian Blau said. "I don't think they're there yet."
Advertiser Snickers, a unit of Mars Inc, had its own social media war room as well as a few people in the stands at the game.
0 Comments