Twitter blowing its own vuvuzela

Over the past few days, we’ve noticed Twitter really getting into the World Cup spirit and we’re loving it. For those that haven’t picked them all up, here are the World Cup goodies we’ve noticed on Twitter.

Aggregation of content

Building on the Twitterfall model, Twitter have built an aggregation page which pulls in world cup related content. It allows you to cycle between general content and specific matches. Check out http://twitter.com/worldcup/worldcup.

Embedded icons

Icons are embedded into tweets where #hashtags for #worldcup and flags of the participating nations are included.

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The hashtag for the tournament is #worldcup and results in a football as you can see in the screenshot above. The list of participating countries, courtesy of @JeffBajayo, one of our authors is illustrated below.

Themed background

As we noted a few days back, Twitter is offering a themed background.

Encouraging the media

Twitter’s media engagement team have published a World Cup Cookbook, thoughts and ideas for how to encourage the media to use Twitter to support their efforts. The suggestions talk about both encouraging Twitter use and building on Twitter content.

“And what’s the endgame for all this? What does success look like? It’s a chance to participate in the world’s biggest conversation during the months of June and July. It’s a set of techniques that you can deploy around other big events. And it’s a super-engaged audience that you can carry forward into other coverage.”

At the time of the Vancouver Olympics we shared our disappointment that the organisers were not building on the social media opportunity. In this instance, although it’s not FIFA who have taken the initiative, we’re encouraged to see a build up of social media activity.

Twitter’s real magic is as a platform to encourage engagement. By directing efforts at casual users (aggregation page), more regular Tweeters (embedded tweets, backgrounds) and publishers (World Cup cookbook), Twitter is really building on the opportunity provided by the World Cup. They’re making real efforts at becoming the go-to place for breaking news. Ayoba!