In today’s digital world, social media users don’t even have to watch televised events like the Super Bowl to know what happened during the game. Commentary that was once reserved for the Monday morning office water cooler gathering is now taking place during the game online. The growing social media sideshow gives viewing audiences for televised events like the Super Bowl more opportunities to talk about and engage with brands online. In this week’s Wrap, we will be analyzing some of the ways users engaged on social media during this year’s big game.
Hyundai was the star of Super Bowl 50. The car company’s “First Date” ad topped a USA Today poll that ranked each Super Bowl commercial. During the game alone, people spent more than 300,000 hours watching ads and teasers on YouTube. As of the day after the game, Super Bowl ads on YouTube were viewed 330 million times, with more than 60 percent of those views coming from mobile devices.
Another beloved Super Bowl commercial is gaining traction among social users in a different way. T-Mobile is among the early adopters of Instagram’s 60-second video ads. The company posted an extended version of its 30-second Super Bowl commercial featuring Drake. But Instagram’s 60-second video format goes beyond companies who advertised during Super Bowl 50. Warner Brothers will also run a 60-second ad for its upcoming rom-com “How to be Single” on Instagram. The new format will give other brands an opportunity to be more creative in their advertising and engage consumers even further.
So, how did the social media sideshow perform at the Super Bowl? The sheer engagement numbers actually decreased from last year. Still, 60 million people talked about the Super Bowl on Facebook, with more than 200 million posts, likes and comments. Twitter recorded 27 million tweets about the Super Bowl, whether it be the game itself, the commercials or the halftime show. Notably, the star-studded halftime performance induced 3.9 million Tweets while it was happening. Nearly half of all brands that advertised during the big game also used hashtags in their commercials, hoping to encourage consumers to keep discussing the brand on social platforms.
Do you post while you watch? Tell us about it in the comments below.
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Sam Bojarski is an associate at WordWrite Communications. He can be reached at sam.bojarski@wordwritepr.com.
