Super Bowl-related tweets were down this year compared to last year’s game, mirroring a drop in activity that also played out on Facebook.
Late Monday, Twitter announced that 27 million tweets were sent Sunday in relation to Super Bowl 50. That’s about a five-percent drop compared to the 28.4 million tweets last year about Super Bowl 49, a game that wasn’t decided until the final minute. (Note: See updated data below.)
Twitter is making a bigger deal about the 4.3 billion total impressions that this year’s tweets received across the web.
Twitter total audience: 4.3B views of #SB50 Tweets on & off Twitter, based on 27m Tweets (inc. pre/post game) pic.twitter.com/ZZnGvHgwJH — Twitter Data (@TwitterData) February 9, 2016
The company didn’t announce a number of tweet impressions last year, so we have nothing to compare.
Postscript, 1:20 pm ET: Thanks to Carter Mansbach on Twitter for pointing out that Twitter did eventually share updated information several hours after its original blog post. Though the blog post was not updated, this tweet shows that there were 2.5 billion views from a total of 36 million Super Bowl-related tweets in 2015. That means this year’s total of 27 million tweets is actually about a 25 percent decline, but the number of times those tweets were seen rose from 2.5 billion last year to 4.3 billion this year, a gain of 72 percent. The headline and parts of the text of this article have been updated to reflect this new information.
Facebook Activity Also Down This Year
Facebook’s self-reported social activity was also down this year.
The company says there were 200 million social interactions about the Super Bowl this year. That’s the second-highest number Facebook’s seen during a Super Bowl, but it’s also about a 25-percent drop from the 265 million interactions in 2015.
The number of Facebook users making those interactions — which Facebook defines as a post/share, like or comment — was also down from 65 million last year to 60 million on Sunday, about an eight-percent dip.
Why the drop in social activity on both platforms this year? It could be anything from last year’s game being more exciting to last year’s commercials being more buzz-worthy, or perhaps the Broncos and Panthers have fewer socially active fans than the Patriots and Seahawks.
But no matter the reason, the drop in tweet activity is sure to be a topic of conversation when Twitter reports earnings on Wednesday.
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