The FIFA World Cup is "shaping up to be the biggest-ever global event for social media," according to Loretta Chao of the WALL STREET JOURNAL. A total of 141 million Facebook users have "posted 459 million interactions to their site during the first week of the World Cup," while Twitter has recorded a "high volume of posts, with 12.2 million tweets during Brazil's opening win against Croatia on June 12, 8 million tweets during the U.S. game against Portugal, and 6.1 million tweets during Brazil vs. Cameroon." Analysts said that this high volume of activity "translates to not only a crush of user-generated content, including lively soccer commentary, jokes and trash-talking, but more value for advertisers." comScore VP/Latin America & Managing Dir of Brazil Alex Banks: "Sponsor value has probably increased because of social media and the amount of buzz it's generated." Chao notes some companies "are already seeing benefits." comScore data shows that World Cup sponsors such as Budweiser and McDonald's "have, on average, doubled their number of Facebook fans" since February '13. However, official sponsors "aren't the only companies using the World Cup to capture eyeballs." Beats Electronics, which makes the Beats By Dre headphones, is not an official FIFA partner, but its 5-minute video featuring Brazil F Neymar "getting a pep talk from his father has gotten nearly 19 million views and over 5,000 comments on YouTube" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 6/25).
