We have started monitoring online search volume of “World Cup” related articles within Hong Kong since September and until mid November 2022. It was found that there were two noticeable spikes between 27 October and 5 November in comparison to other times with less amount of browsing activities.

In contrast to the first spike in mid-Oct, there was a double increment in search volume of articles related to the “World Cup” in late October. Following in a logical sense, that increase could be contributed by a number of publishers posting promotions associated with the “World Cup”.

Moreover, after the Hong Kong government made an announcement in late October regarding further easing of Covid-19 social distancing measures on beaches, bars and restaurants, it has attracted more online search for “World Cup”. For instance, the live screaming locations of the World Cup and beers.

These data indicate that the web audience has already been browsing actively as early as two months before the official World Cup started. Retailers and merchants should take the chance to build up World Cup related content via blogs and social media in order to grab business opportunities.

Most Searched Topics

From our word cloud analysis, the most searched topics by web audience are the countries participating in the World Cup tournament and this year’s World Cup host nation. For instance:

• Qatar (卡塔爾): the host nation and location of the FIFA World Cup 2022.

• Costa Rica (哥斯達黎加): the country was being forced to cancel the friendly match against Iraq in Basra due to an issue with passports stamps at the border between Kuwait and Iraq.

• Ecuador (厄瓜多爾): the country suddenly caught the world’s attention as Qatar was accused of bribing eight Ecuadorian players $7.4 Million to lose the World Cup Opener.

Despite a number of controversies prior to the launch of the World Cup, it is concluded that this event is still being considered as one of the hottest major sporting events ever in the world.

Hot Keyword Search

Through Hotmob’s hot keyword search analysis, it was identified that the following top 10 countries were being searched most prior to the launch of the event.

Among the list of participating countries, Qatar accumulated the highest volume of search. While the U.S.A. comes second as it was one of the teams to compete in Group B on the second day of World Cup (21 Nov). Interestingly enough, web audiences were also interested in monitoring the U.S. stock market during World Cup 2022, thus the keyword search rate increased substantially prior to the match kickoff.

On the other hand, most Hong Kong web audiences were following Japan news closely prior to World Cup launch, as Japan got into the “Group of Death” (Group D) in the tournament which ran riot over Spain and Germany.

On top of that, there was a rise in search volume related to the top 5 countries playing against Qatar towards the end of October and early November. This also indicates that the web audiences had been searching for restaurants that offer live streaming of the World Cup matches.

At the same time, we spotted there was a siginifcant increase in search for the “World Cup'' on 28 October as most web audiences were searching for the details of the tournament as follow:

What’s in it for you?

High Search Volume Articles or Content and Hot Keyword Search are only a few examples of Hotmob’s web audience analysis. Hotmob Datahub is a one of a kind one-stop data solution that marketers and businesses can take advantage of, supporting with key data and valuable insights, closing customer gaps and blind spots while creating new business opportunities.

From now on, marketers and businesses can:

• easily track the key trends surrounding their business environment

• cut down in-house research time for customer analysis, and

• more time for them to reform marketing strategies based on customizing audience groups 

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