With coverage starting at 2255 the BBC Super Bowl coverage was for a (very) late night, Sunday night audience, but whilst America tweeted about ads and the game, a Twitter hashtag related to the BBC coverage remained in Twitter's Trending topic list for a considerable time.
The BBC do not show ads, so every time the game went to an ad break in the US, we had endless studio discussion and analysis in the UK. However, the BBC encouraged viewers to participate through Twitter by regularly promoting a Twitter hashtag on screen #bbcsuperbowl, with presenters then quoting from tweets using this term.
BBC Super Bowl - on screen promotion of Twitter hashtag #bbcsuperbowl
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UK Twitter users then attached this hashtag to continual tweets about the game, though many of these were humourous or sarcastic rather than informed commentary - with a variety of celebrity Twitter users joining in the fun:
UK Twitter users (including well known public figures) tweeting with #bbcsuperbowl
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Number one global Trending Topic was the hashtag #superbowl, but even after Christina Aguilera had sung the US national anthem, the #bbcsuperbowl hashtag appeared second on the list of most used global words / phrases on Twitter, as aggregated in the Twitter Trending Topics list:
#bbcsuperbowl - number two on Twitter's Trending topics
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There are therefore two key take outs here:
1) In the US real life socialising around the Super Bowl is the norm, whereas the late night UK audience used social media platforms to socialise with other like-minded souls who were watching the game.
2) Using a broadcast property to drive to social media not only engages the active audience, but can encourage them to use social media platforms - and use them in a consistent way.
Nice work BBC, but this is the only time of the year when I wish you carried ads! The studio team did a great job to keep going for 5 hours, but Super Bowl coverage without ads is not quite the same......
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