Social Media Takes Flight During March Madness

NCAA pre-tournament social media analytics from leading international social intelligence firm Talkwalker.

March Madness Buzzing with More Than a Half Million Social Media Mentions

Kansas, North Carolina and Virginia are Social Media’s Favorite


#1  KANSAS

#2  NORTH CAROLINA

#3  VIRGINIA

#4  OKLAHOMA

#5  SYRACUSE

#6  UCLA

#7  VILLANOVA

#8  XAVIER

#9  DUKE

#10  CINICINNATI

March Madness is just underway with the First Four games in Dayton, but social media has been in a tournament frenzy since Sunday when the brackets were revealed.  More than 557,000 mentions of March Madness, NCAA Tournament or related terms have been recorded across all social media in the past week, according to international social media analytics firm Talkwalker.

Mentions of March Madness have spiked up nearly 300% over the last 48 hours as the tournament teams were finalized on Selection Sunday. The biggest peak came between 6-7pm ET during the CBS live selection show with more than 73,000 social posts in that one hour referencing the tournamen.

The hashtag #MarchMadness has already been used more than 183K times over the last 7 days. The other major hashtag being used in the buildup was #SelectionSunday which has been used nearly 96K times over the last 7 days. This Bleacher Report Instagram post is the tops among all mentions of March Madness, revealing the four top seeds and garnering nearly 200,000 likes. https://www.instagram.com/p/BgMy9ZLAeS/

This top-trending Tweet from BarStool Sports broadcaster Dan Katz summed up many fans’ feelings about the way the bracket was revealed – in alphabetical order instead of by region and seed.  https://twitter.com/BarstoolBigCat/status/972957624957317122

But who is going to win? Only two of the four top seeds are among social media posters favorites to win the tournament.  According to Talkwalker, the early leaders out of the gate for most mentions are: One-seed Kansas with 20.1K mentions since Sunday, Two-seed North Carolina with 17.5K and One-seed Virginia with 16.8K.

Oklahoma is the fourth most mentioned team with 16.1K posts, but not for a reason that Sooners fans would like – most mentions are because of the feeling that OU maybe should have been left out of the tournament this year.  Syracuse also garnered many mentions (11.8K) for the same reason as did UCLA (12.2K).

The other two top seeds the tournament came in fifth (Villanova with 14.9K) and 11th (Xavier with 11.3K).  Among the other second-seeded teams, Duke was sixth overall in mentions with 14.3K, while Cincinnati with 11.2K and Purdue with 6.1K finished out of the top 10.

Among brands trending is perennial March Madness sponsor Pizza Hut, with this Instagram post featuring its “Pie Tops” which attracted 6,400 likes.  https://www.instagram.com/p/BgEsChNg1kK/

Have fun this March Madness.