World Cup win breaks tweets per minute record

Facebook records 280m interactions as #Okeydoke trends in Ireland

Chatter, celebrations and commiserations after Germany's World Cup win over Argentina in last night's final broke records on Twitter and Facebook, according to the social media companies.

When the final ended there were 618,725 tweets per minute discussing the match, the highest tweets per minute ever seen during an event, Twitter said. In total there were 32.1 million tweets per minute about the game sent during the final.

Other high volume moments were when Mario Götze score the winning and only goal for Germany in extra time - with 556,499 tweets per minute.

Not surprisingly Mario Götze was the most mentioned player for Germany on on Twitter during the match, followed by goalkeeper Manuel Neuer and midfielder Christoph Kramer. Kramer came in as a last-minute replacement for Sami Khedira only to have to go off in the first half after a heavy collision .

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When it was announced that Argentina's Lionel Messi would win the Golden Ball for best player and Germany's Manuel Neuer received the Golden Glove there were 395,773 tweets per minute. Messi was the most mentioned Argentinean player during the match, followed by Gonzalo Higuaín and Javier Mascherano.

Among the most popular tweets were Lukas Podolski’s selfie with Bastian Schweinsteiger from the pitch just after winning the match, which has been retweeted more than 88,000 times. Podolski also tweeted a photo of himself with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the other German players to tweet were Andre Schuerrle and Mesut Özil who both said it was the greatest day of their lives.

The World Cup final was also the biggest sporting event in Facebook history, the social media company said. It found that 88 million people had more than 280 million Facebook interactions (posts, comments, and likes) relating to the match.

Among these were 10.5 million people in the United States, 10 million people in Brazil, 7 million people in Argentina and 5 million people in Grermany.

Those most mentioned in the interactions were Germany’s goal-scoring Mario Götze and Argentina’s Lionel Mess. The top demographic talking about the match were men aged 18-24, followed by men aged 25-34, women aged 18-24 and women aged 25-34.

As with Twitter the top moment was the final whistle when Germany won the championship. This was followed by Götze’s extra-time goal, Messi’s missed free kick near the end of extra time and Messi’s Golden Ball award.

Many celebrities took to Twitter to congratulate the team, with some such as Rihanna getting up close with the players. Rihanna’s photo taken with Götze was retweeted 19,000 times. She later tweeted. “I touched the cup, held the cup, kissed the cup, took a selfie wit the cup!!! I meeeaan...... what is YO bucket list looking like bruh?”

Among the German celebrities to tweet were tennis player Boris Becker and German astronaut Alexander Gerst who tweeted his congratulations from the International Space Station with a photo of himself wearing a German jersey.

A tweet from German Airline Lufthansa showed a World Cup trophy in a suitcase saying: "the best extra weight we've ever carried".

Meanwhile, showing his true loyalties, German native and US head coach Jürgen Klinsmann tweeted “Yes Yes Yes!!! Jogi you did it!!” referring to the Germany coach.

Elsewhere in the US, where the popularly of soccer has risen during the World Cup, the official account for the Empire State Building tweeted a photograph of the landmark Manhattan skycraper lit up in German colours.

In Ireland among the trending terms were RTE presenter Bill O’Heriliy #billoherlihy who anchored his last show with the football panel as well as his his catchphrases #okeydoke# and #WellLeaveItThereSo

The presenter himself tweeted “Thank you for all your support over the years. I am gob smacked at the reaction! It’s been such a happy time. I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Unfortunately for former Ireland rugby captain Brian O’Driscoll, he thought the match started at 9pm not 8pm and missed the first half, implying that he had been watching US Netflix prison drama TV series Orange is the New Black instead. He tweeted at 8.45pm “Ah so I see the WC final isn’t starting at 9!!! God damn you#Orangeisthenewblack”.

Meanwhile a spoof YouTube video of a north Korean news report telling the sheltered nation that the country was in the World Cup final, duped many on social media sites and some news sites. However the footage is fake, with the words not matching the lips of the news reader.

Genevieve Carbery

Genevieve Carbery

Genevieve Carbery is Deputy Head of Audience at The Irish Times