Russia 2018 was most engaging FIFA World Cup ever

Data released by FIFA has revealed that Russia 2018 was the most engaged World Cup in history: interest from fans online resulted in over 7.5 billion engagements across FIFA digital platforms during the tournament.

Digital innovations and initiatives introduced by FIFA including a new bespoke app, broader and more interactive coverage on social media, dedicated reporters for the 32 competing teams and an innovative new visual stories approach played a key role in giving fans more opportunities to connect, follow and engage with all the latest action and breaking news from across the tournament.

FIFA’s social media generated over 580 million interactions, increased responsiveness through a new ‘customer service’ function, and extended the number of followers to more than 128 million.

Two of the main contributors to this growth and deepening of engagement were images from across the 11 Host Cities, and the proliferation of videos that led to over 1.25 billion video views across all official FIFA digital platforms, with more than four million new subscribers to FIFA’s YouTube channel.

The FIFA official app for the tournament became 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 32 team reporters – delivering content in 16 languages – were able to give fans exclusive content in their team’s native language on multiple platforms as they followed their nation’s journey all the way through, allowing fans to follow their teams throughout the tournament like never before.

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.