Here’s the Shiny Red team’s pick of the most interesting social web stories around the World Cup, seeing as things kick off (haha) today:
- BBC Radio 5 Live has kicked off a social media campaign calling for the public to join in creating a giant digital Mexican wave video for the World Cup, hoping to attract a younger audience and boost engagement with listeners. Fans can upload photos of themselves in one of four Mexican wave poses at bigmexicanwave.co.uk, which will turn them into 30-second videos showing members of the public alongside 5 live presenters and celebrities. Celebrities including Dizzee Rascal, Justin Lee Collins, LL Cool J, Miley Cyrus (!) and Richard Hammond are backing the campaign, which will also run across BBC Radio 1. The images are then being beamed onto the network of 19 BBC Big Screens across the UK. Users can then share the finished result on Facebook, Twitter and via email. The video will be available to watch on YouTube.
- Meanwhile over on Twitter there’s a special hub where fans can view live tweets from around the world. In typical Twitter-style, they’ve kept it quite simple: click on a flag to see what everyone’s Tweeting alongside upcoming match times. If you’d like to join the conversation, use the relevant hashtag- #eng for England and so on. In fact Twitter have just introduced icons that appear alongside the hashtags every time they’re used – a small change, but a fun one.
- Mashable have pulled together a useful guide on how to follow the tournament on Twitter – including lists of the best people to follow, the most used hashtags, and the best news and views from across the network. Along the same lines the team at footie blog Whoateallthepies has pulled together guides to top showboaters as well as best players and hard men – if you’re a footie fan, agree or disagree and if you’re a bluffer, great if you want to do some quick World Cup swatting.
- If you’re interested in stats, this article shares some fascinating numbers around the World Cup, including Nike having the biggest share (30.2 percent) of blog, forum and social network mentions when compared against the other sporting brands, despite not being an official sponsor.
- Sticking with big brand involvement, there’s an introduction here to Adidas’ digital strategy for the tournament – involving Facebook, Youtube, auctions, and a virtual comic. They’re giving away prizes to fans who accurately predict the outcome of various statistical and skill challenges – so one for the true football nuts.
- The FA themselves have got some nice stuff going on, including a new Facebook page that allows fans to get their own team number, create a shirt, and show support. In addition they have a branded Youtube channel with interviews and behind the scene clips (including a popular one of Becks getting a dressing down for kicking the ball), and an official Twitter presence sharing teams news, updates, and links to all other channels.
And finally:
- Best ever world cup England song, World in Motion – can this really be 20 years old? And why oh why did John Barnes wreck a beautiful thing for Mars money?
- My personal favourite of the many ads / virals flying around trying to tap into World Cup fever – if only for David Beckham still managing to sound like a wally with only one line.



Apologies for blowing our own trumpet, but I do so on behalf of people too modest to do it themselves…









