FIFA’s Official FIFA World Cup pages reach over 40 million Twitter interactions

The governing body, which manages accounts in six different languages, has seen a 55% growth in followers since the start of the competition in Qatar.

Despite all the controversy surrounding the hosting of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the digital success of the tournament can be measured through the performance of its six official profiles. FIFA make content available in English, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, French and German. Since the start of the tournament on November 20, the organization has already made more than 15,300 posts as of 13:00 (GMT) on December 13.

Together, the profiles have recorded almost 41 million interactions in 23 days. The page in English is the one that has existed the longest and, consequently, has the highest number of followers (11.9M – about 63% of the total). It leads in terms of number of interactions: there have been more than 25.4M, which tracks with a proportional result in relation to the number of followers: 62.2% of the total interactions took place with the profile in English.

This tendency towards English can also be noticed in the 10 posts with the highest number of interactions. The first nine are from the page in English and the tenth is in Spanish. Interestingly, the two posts with the most interactions do not mention players or matches, but the opening ceremony, with a video featuring South Korean singer Jung Kook. Together, the two posts accumulate 1.3 million interactions.

"See you at the Opening!" – Jung Kook

Today, 5.30pm local time. #Qatar2022 | #FIFAWorldCup pic.twitter.com/3oulTUthBV

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) November 20, 2022

The Spanish-language post with the most interactions also has South Korea as the subject, but this time it’s about football. In total, there were 265,000 interactions.

🇰🇷 Dreamers ✨@bts_bighit | @theKFA pic.twitter.com/vw708Aa5Y5

— Copa Mundial FIFA 🏆 (@fifaworldcup_es) December 2, 2022

In our article in which we analyze the surprising Instagram accounts of Croatia and Morocco, Guilherme Neto, Digital Manager of Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama,  from Brazil, points out that the lack of posts in English meant that the pages, despite the good local results, are not successful worldwide due to a language barrier.

“FIFA, with its strategy of having pages in six different languages, is seeking to reach the largest number of people using the World Cup as a topic. As expected, the account in English has the highest concentration of interactions and growth, not only because it is the first and oldest account, but because its content is in the universal language of today,” said Neto.

When analyzing the engagement rate, however, the ranking of the accounts’ performances changes completely.

If in terms of interactions, 90% of the top ten are posts in English, but when we analyze the posts by engagement, five of the ten  are from the Portuguese page and the other five are in Spanish — none of them are in English. Another very interesting detail: one thing in common across these ten most engaging posts?

Football!

This post about Richarlison’s volley stands out as the most engaged at 28%:

🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯 pic.twitter.com/xWZ2XSQ3NI

— Copa do Mundo FIFA 🏆 (@fifaworldcup_pt) November 24, 2022

Then there’s this post, about Argentina’s heroics against the Dutch:

LOS HÉROES DE LA ARGENTINA. pic.twitter.com/zZqoTzdEDx

— Copa Mundial FIFA 🏆 (@fifaworldcup_es) December 9, 2022

Said Neto: “It is important to highlight that the creation of accounts in Spanish and Portuguese ends up reaching precisely the audience that interacts more with content, and that has a more intense relationship with football. With all certainty, in the next World Cup we will see an even more intense digital relationship with football’s fans.”

AN INCREASINGLY VALUABLE ASSET

Disregarding the behavior of people around the world in relation to football, the content produced and promoted by the six official pages of the FIFA World Cup on Twitter has become a great asset for the governing body of football in the world. Proof of this is the growth in the number of followers that these pages have had over the last 23 days: 2.2 million new followers, an increase of almost 14% compared to the start of the tournament.

In a quick comparison in the same period (November 20th – December 12th), the NFL had 10% of the total interactions that FIFA accumulated:

Samba Digital will continue to analyze digital trends in the world of sports.

Header image: Souvik Banerjee