Sport Relief is a week of activities and events where the British public gets together to get active, raise money and change lives. This year the Sports Relief campaign has run from the 17th March to the 23rd March 2018, with it culminating at 7pm on Friday 23rd March for the televised show including comedy sketches, live music performances and live sports challenges. We decided to use our sophisticated app to collect on mentions of Sport Relief, and see what the nation is talking about.
Don’t miss #SportRelief tonight, coming to you live from Manchester! We have an all-star line up and plenty of surprises in store, including @bbcstrictly, sketches from @JohnBishop100, #5liveaside with @RobbieSavage8 and an all star team… and much more! Watch from 7pm @BBCOne 🙌 pic.twitter.com/Lj4yW1a6eg
— Sport Relief (@sportrelief) March 23, 2018
We collected on a sample of all tweets mentioning ‘Sport Relief’ from midnight on the 17th of March to 9am on the 23rd of March, collecting over 34,000 tweets. There were over 21,000 unique users, and a potential user reach of 181,402,879 users. The overall sentiment of the campaign was positive, with 71% positivity (25% neutral, 4% negative).
Great to see @MayorofLondon join @PeckhamAcademy pupils at Netball4Change yesterday – a project funded through @SportRelief money. We were excited to announce the new £3m London Together Fund for grassroots community sports in London. Apply here: https://t.co/FhTvvSSqwk pic.twitter.com/Ihi9dqIQqV
— Comic Relief (@comicrelief) March 22, 2018
The highest engaged time period was 9pm-10pm on the 21st March, with a percentage jump of 201%.
The reason for this jump was due to Zoe Ball’s TV documentary about her cycle challenge, where she spoke about her personal experiences with mental health and depression. Mentions of this documentary were evident in 23% of the tweets between 9pm and 10pm, and during this time period, there was 80% positive sentiment (16% neutral, 4% negative). The tweets ranged in positive emotions, with ‘Thank You’ mentioned in 18% of the tweets, ‘love’ mentioned in 15% of the tweets and ‘💙’ mentioned in 12% of the tweets. Some top influencers also tweeted about the show, with Alex Jones tweeting to her 228,000 followers about the bravery shown in the show.
Watching @ZoeTheBall on @BBCOne. So tender and raw. Her and the contributors are so brave but it’s doing such an important job. @sportrelief
— Alex Jones (@MissAlexjones) March 21, 2018
There were some interesting trending topics collected in our data sample. The official hashtag of the Sport Relief 2018 campaign was #WhateverMovesYou, and it had 68% positive sentiment in our sample data (32% neutral, 0% negative).
Hi Tweethearts I will be supporting @sportrelief tomorrow morning at Victoria Station for the #WhateverMovesYou campaign – come on down to join us! #SportRelief
— Louie Spence (@louiespence) March 19, 2018
Another interesting topic was #NationalGallopingDay, which was a national day used to drum up interest to show the British public there were different ways to ‘beat a billion steps’. It had 88% positive sentiment in our sample data (12% neautral, 0% negative).
Joey doing what he does best! #NationalGallopingDay @sportrelief @mermhart pic.twitter.com/WrsxVTAbSc
— War Horse (@WarHorseOnStage) March 21, 2018
Another way Sport Relief were engaging with the British public to ‘beat a billion steps’ was using the hashtag #HogwartsLeague. They teamed up with Pottermore to get Harry Potter fans to sign up and download an app, asking them to declare their house as either #TeamGryffindor, #TeamRavenclaw, #TeamHufflepuff or #TeamSlytherin. The app also had Harry Potter themed rewards when you used the app to raise money or get active.
Hey Muggles, look this way 👀 Take on The Annual Broom Race of Sweden Challenge in the #SportRelief app and you'll be rewarded with snippets from the new #QuidditchThroughTheAges audiobook! https://t.co/od16fjO5er https://t.co/XzVkwk6FJo
— Sport Relief (@sportrelief) March 17, 2018
Overall, the Sport Relief 2018 campaign has been highly successful in creating engagement and conversation on Twitter. With top influencers like Victoria Beckham, Olly Murs and Davina McCall tweeting about #SportRelief, the message has been spread thoroughly. We at Blurrt hope that Sport Relief 2018 raises more money than ever for this fantastic cause!
To find out more about Blurrt’s social media analysis and how it can help you understand the Twitter conversation about your live event, product launch or brand campaign, contact Becca at becca@blurrt.co.uk