Wimbledon generates over 5.4 million posts across social media

The two week Wimbledon extravaganza generated more than 5.4 million posts across social media platforms, with Andy Murray securing almost 40,000 tweets per minute come his victory.

In the final moments of his battle with Novak Djokovic, in which Murray became the first British male winner in 77 years, 120,000 tweets were generated per minute – outdoing the Spice Girls’ performance at the Olympic Games last year by 4,000.

Overall, Murray generated 960,000 more posts than opponent Djokovic in the final match.

Research from IBM, which analysed thousands of Wimbledon fans’ tweets using content analytics and natural language, found that out of the 1.5 million tweets about the players in the first week, 1.4 million were said with positive sentiment – an average of 86.3%.

Facebook reported more than 20 million posts, comments and ‘likes’ in relation to the competition, while Google recorded over two million searches for Murray, whose winning tweet – “Can’t believe what’s just happened!!!!” – was retweeted more than 77,000 times in just over an hour, according to Twitter.

During the competition, Murray’s Twitter followers rose by 20% – adding 131,000 followers over the final day.

However, it was Djokovic who reigned supreme on rival networking site Facebook, attracting 3.1 million ‘likes’ – three times the amount as Murray, who had 1.3 million at the time.

Evian secured the highest number of brand mentions – only 750 – following the launch of its new bottle design and baby app campaign.

TV audiences peaked at just over 17 million during the final minutes of the match – the second biggest audience in Wimbledon history behind Borg vs McEnroe in 1980 (17.3 million), and the highest television rating of the year so far.