Social Media Round-up: Week 6

Oh boy, what a week, what a weekend! How exciting is Rugby World Cup 2011 turning out to be? In this week's Social Media Round-up we take a look at both semi-final matches, update you on the key RWC 2011 social media statistics and highlight a couple of interested trends. With just one more Social Media Round-up to come next week we hope that you have enjoyed following the RWC 2011 through the eyes of Twitter and Facebook. This has been the first RWC to utilise social networks and social media so widely; giving us incredible insights into which teams have the most socially engaged fans, sentiment around key issues and of course 100,000's of conversations between fans, commentators and players.

Live Twitter Chat with RWC 2011 CEO Martin Sneddon

Tomorrow there is a live twitter chat with RWC 2011 CEO Martin Snedden (Oct 19) from 4-5pm NZT. You can send questions during the hour to @rugbyworldcup with the hashtag #rwc2011chat and Martin will do his best to answer them.

RWC2011 Mentions on Twitter

This timeline of mentions on Twitter includes tweets mentioning a variety of keywords and hashtags including #rwc2011, rwc11, rwc, #rwc11, #rwc, rwc2011, rugbyworldcup and #rugbyworldcup. Saturday's semi-final match between France and Wales generated a lot more tweets than the New Zealand, Australia match.

  (Note: Hashtags on Twitter refer to when someone posts a word with a # in front of it, it makes that word searchable and clickable. Hashtags help you tag and categorize your tweets so others looking at that hashtag search feed will also see your posts.) Altogether there were more than 400,000 Tweets mentioning RWC2011, the semi-final teams of Australia, New Zealand, Wales and France and the keyword 'rugby' over the last 7 days.

Since September 1 there have been more than 3.6 million tweets mentioning @rugbyworldcup, RWC2011, one of the teams or the keyword 'rugby'.

1000's of new Facebook Fans

The semi-finals were a huge social media event. On Friday and Saturday the Welsh Facebook page gained more than 2,700 new fans and Australia gained 2267 new fans. On Sunday New Zealand gained 18,279 new fans. Over Saturday and Sunday the RWC 2011 Facebook page gained 13,528 new fans. France does not have an official team Facebook page.
 

On Facebook RWC 2011 teams have gained more than 288,000 new Facebook fans since September 1st

New Zealand has gained more than 175,000 alone. The official RWC 2011 Facebook Page has grown by more than 230,000 fans over the tournament.

Semi-final 1 - France v Wales

In

Cardiff more than 60,000 Welsh fans flocked to Millenium Stadium to watch their lads battle for a spot in the RWC 2011 Final. Sadly for the Welsh France won by 1 point. 'Red Card' was trending on Twitter in New Zealand, in fact 8/10 topics trending in New Zealand on Sunday we're related to that match. Even though France does not have an official Twitter or Facebook page tweets were flying in for support of their team. When France beat England in the quarter-finals there were more than 40,000 Tweets, on Saturday there was almost 35,000 tweets posted mentioning France. The hashtag #WalesvFrance was tweeted more than 18,000 times on Saturday and was trending worldwide. Over the last week Wales received over 31,000 Tweets, gained more than 2,500 new followers on Twitter and more than 4,000 new fans on Facebook.

Semi-final 2 - Australia v New Zealand

This semi-final was the southern hemisphere battle for a place in the RWC 2011 Final. Australia had beaten New Zealand to win the Tri Nations in September so both nations held their breath in anticipation all week for this epic matchup. New Zealand dominated almost every facet of the game to win 20-6 at Eden Park There were more than 120,000 tweets on Sunday mentioning #RWC 2011 or 'Rugby'. 41,000 tweets mentioned the 'Allblacks', #Allblacks or @Allblacks during the semi final week and that was evenly matched by Australian fans with just over 40,000 tweets. The @Allblacks gained more than 6,300 new followers on Twitter while Australia gained more than 1,000. On Facebook New Zealand gained over 34,000 new fans and Australia gained almost 6,000 over the week The hashtag #AUSvNZL was trending worldwide on Sunday

Tweet Insights

So we've seen a heck of a lot of social media activity around RWC 2011. Next week's roundup will highlight all the big numbers so today we thought we'd take a look at a few other interesting trends on Twitter

• Eden Park - Has been mentioned over 17,000 times since September 1 - Before RWC 2011 Eden Park was being mentioned less than 100 times per day.
• Auckland - Has been mentioned over 90,000 times since September 1 - Before RWC 2011 Auckland was being mentioned between 1000-1500 times per day on Twitter.
• New Zealand - Has been mentioned almost 345,000 times on Twitter since September 1. - Before RWC 2011 New Zealand was being mentioned on average 5,000 times per day.
• IRB - Has been mentioned in tweets more than 21,000 times since September1.
• Piri Weepu - Piri Weepu has been mentioned in almost 100,000 tweets since September 1
• 'Groin' - Remember when Dan Carter got injured. 'Groin' was trending in New Zealand and was mentioned more than 8,300 times in tweets over three days

RWC 2011 has two matches to go. Just like 1987 Australia and Wales play out for 3rd and 4th on Friday night and on Sunday we have the Final between New Zealand and France. Good luck to all the teams and their fans and remember add #RWC2011 to your tweets, share your photos and enjoy the final week of RWC 2011.

Finals Weekend Hashtags - Lets get them trending Worldwide!

Third and Fourth playoff match between Australia and Wales - #AUSvWAL Final match between New Zealand and France - #NZLvFRA