World Cup final breaks Facebook and Twitter records

Germany’s win drew 280m interactions on social network, more than 2013 Super Bowl, with peak of 618,725 tweets a minute Germany’s World Cup final victory over Argentina smashed global records on Twitter, and has become the biggest sporting event in Facebook’s history.


Twitter said that Germany’s 1-0 victory peaked at 618,725 tweets a minute, easily breaking the previous record of 580,166 set during the team’s 7-1 demolition of Brazil in the semi-final. However, the total of 32.1m tweets sent during the game – tracked on aglobal heat map as the game progressed – failed to break the record 35.6m set by the Germany/Brazil game.


German player Lukas Podolski proved to be something of a one-man Twitter “selfie” phenomenon – a shot of teammate Bastian Schweinsteiger kissing his cheek immediately after the victory was retweeted more than 88,620 times and received 78,169 favourites.


A follow-up shot with German chancellor Angela Merkel, which Podolski labelled “Selfie 2”, managed 25,022 retweets and 29,809 favourites. Facebook said that 88 million global users made a record 280m interactions – posts, likes and comments – during the World Cup final.


The social networking site said this easily broke through the previous record held of 245m interactions, set by the Super Bowl in 2013. Facebook said that the top five countries participating in the global “buzz” were, in order, US, Brazil, Argentina, Germany and Indonesia.