ZURICH: FIFA has touted the 2018 World Cup in Russia as the most engaging in history.
Its digital platforms in total recorded as much as 7.5 billion engagements during the whole competition, football’s world governing body asserts.
FIFA’s initiatives such as having much broader and interactive coverage of the competition on social media, the appointment of dedicated reporters for all the 32 teams, exclusive content in 16 different languages, its visual stories approach and new digital innovations ensured that it garnered 128 million followers who did not miss a single moment of action.
Its social media handles generated over 580 million interactions and a new ‘customer service’ function is said to have increased responsiveness.
FIFA’s YouTube channel gained more than 4 million subscribers and its videos gained a viewership of above 1.25 billion.
The official app for the tournament was the number one sports app in over 128 countries, while FIFA.com was ranked as the number one football website in the world.
FIFA’s interactive games also generated huge fan engagement, with over 25 million fans visitors taking part in apps such as McDonald’s FIFA World Cup Fantasy, Hyundai’s FIFA World Cup Match Predictor, and the Panini Digital Sticker Album presented by Coca-Cola.
FIFA also expanded its coverage to newer audiences, through its official Russian VKontakte account – passing more than one million followers during the tournament – as well as to China on Weibo and WeChat.
