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Super Bowl blackout generated 231,500 tweets per minute, and other social media numbers

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social super bowlThe Super Bowl has come and gone, but not without dramatic flair. Between the electrical outage, the 49ers near comeback, and the mystical alien-meets-angel entity that is Beyoncé, Super Bowl XLVII offered plenty of entertainment – and apparently kept us talking and typing. In true Twitter fashion, the microblogging platform has released some numbers and details about the day, including:

  • We (unsurprisingly) beat last year’s Super Bowl tweets, racking up 24.1 million tweets about the game.

  • The biggest moments that got us button-mashing were: The power outage (231,500 tweets per minute, or TPM); the 108-yard kickoff return by Raven’s Jacoby Jones (185,000 TPM); the Raven’s winning moment (183,000 TPM); Jones’ 56 yard caught pass for a touchdown (168,000 TPM); and Gore’s 49ers’ touchdown (131,000 TPM).

  • The most mentioned players were Ray Lewis, Joe Flacco, Colin Kaepernick, and Jacoby Jones.

  • Of course, the athletes were nearly overshadowed by Beyoncé, whose halftime show spawned 5.5 million tweets (more than were sent during the entire game last year) – including this gem from none other than the first lady herself.

Advertising was naturally a major part of the game. This was the year commercials had pre-event advertisements as teasers … seriously. But the power outage managed to steal their thunder: A handful of brands were able to capitalize on the awkward moment with some incredible quick thinking. Check out these seriously topical promos that hit the Web while the lights were out:

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Also getting some attention? The alleged Beyoncé wardrobe malfunction. Sure, it’s no Janet Jackson moment, but there’s already plenty of talk around the World Wide Web about an intimate moment we may have quickly witnessed.

Perhaps the only thing that could have distracted us (but really, could it?) is straight-laced, almost-boring Joe Flacco’s very obvious F-bomb. Oh CBS … we suppose it’s nice to know there’s someone out there having a worse Monday than the rest of America.

Instagram also released some Super Bowl related stats: “Over three million photos that mentioned Super Bowl-themed words in their captions were shared today; and at peak, more than 450 photos about the game were posted every second. During the halftime show, over 200 photos per second were posted about Beyoncé (@baddiebey) alone.” 

instagram sb round up
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The photo-sharing network also commented on CBS using Instagram images (from the Ravens and 49ers players – don’t freak out about the company taking users’ photos) in its pre-game show and Oreo’s Instagram contest. If that’s not a sign of the times, we’re not sure what is. 

To sum things up a little and add some perspective, Twitter was mentioned in 50 percent of commercials during the game, Facebook in 8 percent… and Google+ went home empty-handed. And there you have it: Super Bowl XLVII and all the social stats that went with. 

Molly McHugh
Molly McHugh
Former Social Media/Web Editor
Before coming to Digital Trends, Molly worked as a freelance writer, occasional photographer, and general technical lackey…
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