Football fanatics around the world are eagerly looking forward to the biggest football action in the world, the holy grail of world football, to be crowned world football champion for the next four years. World Cup 2014 is coming very soon in a week’s time on 12th June 2014 in Brazil! In Singapore, we are a football mad nation and besides supporting our very own home team, the Lions, we all as football fanatics, also support another international team! The 32 teams participating in FIFA World Cup 2014 have their own social media tools and platforms to engage and update their supporters! Are you ready for FIFA World Cup 2014 action not just on television and also on Twitter?
I am a Liverpool FC fan and I personally have a curated Twitter List titled Liverpool FC giving me news, updates, rumours, sharing, stories and even live match action tweets! Reading and catching the football action on Twitter timeline can be a fun thing too, even though nothing beats watching it live! There are times when we can’t catch the match live on television, following and reading football action on Twitter timeline can be just as exciting and even overwhelming if there are many football fans tweeting and sharing, all united by a common hashtag!
Twitter Singapore shared with us on the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2014, on how to catch the action on Twitter and they also prepared a comprehensive list of Twitter accounts/handle for us football fanatics to follow! I am going to bookmark #WorldCup on my HootSuite Twitter App and I am prepared for fast and furious flow of FIFA #WorldCup 2014 tweets, actions, updates! Here are some on the How-To-Follow guide on #WorldCup 2014 on Twitter, before that, a football trivia – Who would be in your Twitter XI Dream Team ?
Twitter XI Dream Team
If Twitter users were picking their starting lineup, the eleven players below would be a good place to start. This team is made up of the most-mentioned player Twitter @handles in the past three months, forming an XI that would surely be the envy of any manager in football:
World Cup teams
Thirty of the 32 nations competing in this year’s World Cup have official accounts on Twitter. You can follow all thirty here; this graphic shows the top six most followed teams:
World Cup players
More than 300 of the players from the 32 competing nations are on Twitter, with representatives of all the competing teams having a presence on the platform – follow them here. The top six most followed players at the 2014 World Cup are
Twitter and football go hand-in-hand – seven of the ten most talked-about moments on Twitter in 2013 were related to football. So Singaporean fans can easily use Twitter to follow their favorite country teams and players during the #WorldCup. Here are some interesting Tweets related to the FIFA World Cup from the start of the year to now:
Custom timeline of FIFA World Cup-related Tweets from top teams
https://twitter.com/CBF_Futebol/status/472493599117312001
https://twitter.com/Argentina/status/473901114887532544
https://twitter.com/SeFutbol/status/473873216218611712
https://twitter.com/england/status/441917409247518720
https://twitter.com/Vivo_Azzurro/status/471707111206813697
https://twitter.com/equipedefrance/status/471574471896473601
https://twitter.com/DFB_Team/status/470811499389517824
https://twitter.com/ussoccer/status/473867939599638528
https://twitter.com/Socceroos/status/469405621989949441
Custom timeline of FIFA World Cup-related Tweets from top players
https://twitter.com/Cristiano/status/473482810519715840
https://twitter.com/neymarjr/status/464073608810467328
https://twitter.com/WayneRooney/status/469480092461465600
https://twitter.com/MesutOzil1088/status/469124292387823617
https://twitter.com/andresiniesta8/status/473480282679824384
https://twitter.com/VincentKompany/status/468314138322935808
https://twitter.com/Benzema/status/473176145874407424
https://twitter.com/aguerosergiokun/status/468186309849534465
https://twitter.com/gianluigibuffon/status/473815281916456960
https://twitter.com/Persie_Official/status/467000185374408704
Breaking news
Twitter is increasingly used as a tool for breaking news and sharing of exclusive content. Many of the country teams announced their initial and final rosters first on Twitter before anywhere else. In fact, 45% of football fans in Singapore said that news breaks fastest on Twitter:
Custom timeline of all squad announcements made on Twitter from the official team handles
https://twitter.com/england/statuses/465838619459321856 (England Team)
https://twitter.com/SeFutbol/statuses/472694545592119296 (Spain team)
https://twitter.com/Argentina/status/473578564638367744 (Argentina Team)
https://twitter.com/ussoccer/statuses/469591998039863296 (US team)
https://twitter.com/Vivo_Azzurro/status/466268158811443200 (Italy team)
https://twitter.com/KNVB/status/472698804438052864 (Netherlands team)
https://twitter.com/Socceroos/status/473810076273098752 (Australia team)
Hashtags
The official hashtags for the 2014 World Cup are #WorldCup and #Brazil2014. Hashtags join conversations together on Twitter, so follow along to keep close to the action, or use them in your own Tweets to join the global conversation.
Official accounts
To be sure you’re receiving the most reliable, up-to-the-minute World Cup news, this selection of verified accounts is a great place to start. You’ll see real-time updates from organisations including:
- @FifaWorldCup – The official source for all things World Cup
- @Fifacom – Follow for news from the international football federation
- @Brazuca – The official match ball
Twitter and Sport
When big events happen in the real world, they happen on Twitter, too – and never is that truer than with big televised sporting events. For sports fans watching the match, Twitter is the second screen to TV broadcast. It creates a space for live commentary in the moment, from fans and experts alike, across sports. Recent global research from @Nielsen reveals that:
- 50% of Tweets about TV in 2013 were related to sports
- 492 million Tweets sent in 2013 were about sports events
- 12 of the top 20 tweeted events on Twitter in 2013 were sporting events
- There were 1.7 million Tweets about the World Cup draw globally in two hours
In Singapore specifically, research from @globalwebindex shows that Twitter is the perfect companion for World Cup 2014:
- 81% of Twitter users in Singapore will be watching the World Cup
- 76% of Singaporean users use Twitter for something related to football
- 36% of people on Twitter in Singapore follow football clubs
- Nearly half (45%) of football lovers in Singapore say that news breaks fastest on Twitter
- 45% of Singapore users tweet when there is a goal, and 56% tweet post-match
The FIFA World Cup 2014 will take place from June 12th to July 13th, with the opening match in Sao Paolo between Brazil and Croatia. So be sure to tune in with Twitter for real-time updates on all the action for the 64 matches – track every match, experience every goal, and hear the roar of the crowd. All the drama of #Brazil2014 will unfold on the pitch, but also on Twitter, so you can find fellow fans, follow your team, and love every second of the World Cup on Twitter.
Alright, football fanatics, time to add in all the FIFA #WorldCup 2014 team official twitter handles and your favourite World Cup football players into your twitter application! Remember to add your #WorldCup hashtag and you can start to feel the sambal football action!
* Information and Pictures Courtesy of Twitter Singapore and Ogilvy Public Relations *