What Will Facebook Do After Its Most Talked About Event (World Cup) Ends Sunday?

The World Cup final match takes place Sunday. With it, the conclusion of the most talked about event ever on Facebook FB.

So, what’s next? Will there be another ‘most talked about event’ ever on the social media site soon, or will this record stand until the next World Cup? Or even beyond?

A Perfect Storm

Given the ‘perfect storm’ construction of the World Cup conversation – most popular sport on the planet + more online fans than ever + a social media giant with 900,000,000 unique monthly visitors – it might well be that Facebook is at least one World Cup away from its next blockbuster conversation.

Facebook’s own statistics seem to bear that scenario out. The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, produced 120 million interactions from 45 million individuals. Even the Super Bowl only generated 185 million interactions from 50 million people. Compared to the more than one billion interactions related to the World Cup, other major world sporting events pale.

Comparison With Twitter

In a way, Facebook has the same problem as Twitter TWTR. Germany’s 7-1 pounding of Brazil in the semifinal match Tuesday generated 35.6 million tweets, a record for the micro-blogging site.

Wedbush Securities analyst Shyam Patil, told Financial Post that although Twitter benefited from the World Cup, only time would tell whether that benefit would last.

Patil said, “If they add users and engagement during this event are those users going to remain engaged going forward? Historically, I think that’s been an issue for them.”

Even with more users, Facebook would have to be able to take advantage of its huge interaction rates during the World Cup in order to see additional long-term benefit.

And Now … The World

To that point, Facebook’s one billion interactions were generated by just 17 percent of its user base – 220 million individuals. The real ‘what’s next’ for Facebook is much more massive than a single sporting event.

In a recent op-ed in The Wall Street Journal CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted “… moments in history where the invention of new technology has completely rewired the way our society lives and works.”

Citing the printing press, radio, television, mobile phones, and the Internet as “among these moments,” Zuckerberg added, “In the coming decades, we will see the greatest revolution yet, as billions of people connect to the Internet for the first time.”

Transforming Lives

What’s next for Facebook is what has always been next and, although events like the World Cup might help precipitate it, the real effort, Zuckerberg said, would be literally to “connect the world.”

As Zuckerberg said in his op-ed, “If these efforts work, we can expect to connect billions of people within the next decade—and this will transform their lives and communities.”

At the time of this writing, Jim Probasco had no position in any mentioned securities.

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