Tag Archive for: World Cup

Show locals you’re World Cup ready with new “Good for watching sports” Google tag

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Google My Business is bringing a new way to highlight your business with an attribute noting your establishment is “good for watching sports.”

The new tag comes just as the World Cup is heating up and many are flocking to bars or restaurants to watch the latest games with friends and fellow fans.

Because the World Cup is such a big event for gathering with friends to watch the competition, Google is spotlighting the new attribute directly in the “highlights” section on the overview tab of Google My Business listings.

Once the World Cup ends, the “good for watching sports” tag will be moved to the “About this business section” of local listings. However, it may also appear in the overview tab of listings depending on the situation and query.

According to Google, the only requirement for being a business that is “good for watching sports” is that you offer a TV that airs sports. That means you don’t have to be a dedicated sports grill or bar to turn yourself into a hub for the biggest sporting events.

The new attribute is one of just a few tags you can manually add to your listing, along with other options like whether you have Wi-Fi available to the public, if you are wheelchair accessible, or if you offer outdoor seating.

In some cases, Google may also apply other attributes based on customer reviews, such as noting that you are “popular with locals.” Unfortunately, these types of attributes can’t be added manually.

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Google Celebrates USA’s FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015 Win

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Today Google is celebrating the United States’ Women’s World Cup win with a Doodle on the homepage of the search engine. The logo appeared last night after the United States team defeated Japan in the final game 5-to-2.

Google received some criticism during the tournament for not devoting space for a special box on search results pages related to the tournament like they have done for all major sports championships. Unlike in the past, only searchers using Android devices saw a special box with scores and game times during the championship.

After last night’s win, however, Google immediately put the team front and center on the search engine with a special Doodle.

Midfielder Carli Lloyd was the breakout star of the championship game, scoring three of the team’s five goals. Her third goal was a stunning kick from just past midfield over the Japanese goalie, giving Lloyd the second hat trick of her career and the earliest hat trick in a Women’s World Cup game in history. Her performance won Lloyd FIFA’s Golden Ball for the most outstanding player in the tournament.

The logo celebrating America’s win is currently showing across the United States, but Google’s Japan homepage also features a slightly modified version of the logo with the prominent U.S. flag removed.

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The U.S. is the first team to win three World Cup titles, with previous wins in 1991 and 1999.

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Twitter and Facebook Want To Keep You Up To Date With World Cup 2014

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We are just a day away from the start of World Cup 2014, and this year’s competition will be the most socially connected yet. Social media use is at an all-time high, and Twitter and Facebook are locked in a battle for the place as the dominant platform users turn to for keeping up to date with scores, game times, and fan response.

Though soccer is often treated like a novelty in the US, the sport actually has a strong and passionate audience across the country – not to mention the unbelievably large fan base around the world. FIFA claims that around 3.2 million people watched at least one game of the last World Cup in 2010, and this year seems likely to get even more viewers.

As Twitter and Facebook made clear with announcements yesterday, both platforms are hoping to get a piece of the action by rolling out campaigns aimed at promoting soccer and encouraging fans to turn to their specific platforms.

Facebook’s Trending World Cup Page

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Facebook’s News Feed algorithm isn’t exactly well-suited for keeping up with real-time conversation like Twitter is, but it is offering a Trending World Cup page designed to help fans follow the latest scores, match highlights, and conversation. The page will even allow users to click through a global map which displays the Facebook popularity of top World Cup players.

Several people, including Marketing Land, have already used the global map to discover some fairly interesting statistics, such as England’s Wayne Rooney being strangely popular in Namibia.

As with all of Facebook’s trending pages, the World Cup page will also show the latest posts from friends, players, teams, and the media making sure you never miss a spectacular goal or scandalous foul.

Facebook users will be able to filter conversations based on the specific match they are watching as well, once the games have started.

Twitter’s World Cup Landing Page and Hashflags

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Twitter users can already access a dedicated World Cup landing page via the hashtags #WorldCup and #WorldCup2014, which offers a scoreboard and updates with conversation about the event and games. Similar to Facebook, Twitter will also allow users to organize what content they are seeing by selecting “match timelines” that only show tweets about specific games.

This is fairly standard for users, but Twitter users from the last World Cup may be excited to see that “hashflags” are returning for the latest competition. Introduced for the 2010 World Cup, the feature displays flag icons of people who include appropriate three-letter hashtags in their tweets. Before the games kick off on Thursday, Twitter will also unveil “The World Cup of Tweets” bracket.

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The social platform is also acting to retain new users who choose Twitter for their World Cup 2014 social needs by adding soccer suggestions to the sign-up process throughout the games.

“After you sign up and choose your username, you can select the team you’re supporting,” Twitter’s Xiaolei Li wrote in a blog post. “Then you can choose from a number of profile and header photos that represent your country. (Of course, you can upload your own photos too.)”

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