At DareDevil we are huge fans of wrestling and we look forward to the annual Royal Rumble Event each January. While it may be behind Wrestlemania in terms of the fanfair and coverage, the Royal Rumble match – a 30 man elimination match has proved appealing to fans of all ages.
We previously observed how well WWE covered Summerslam 2016 across their Social Media channels and wanted to devote the same level attention to this showcase event.
During the pre-show and the Royal Rumble event 16 posts were published in total on the official WWE Facebook page.
Each post would feature a video, with the combined view count being 12,930,000. The posts generated 599,918 reactions, 83,988 shares and 65,440 comments.
Interestingly the first post – a simple, yet effective “Join Us Live” post to generate interest was the most responded to, earning 107,319 reactions, 20, 901 shares and 43,936 comments.
The next most responded to post was the last, showcasing Royal Rumble match winner Randy Orton with a massive 133,783 reactions, 23,802 shares and 9,220 comments.
The post that was least responded to featured the Cruiserweight Championship match between Neville and Richard Swann, with only 9,147 reactions, 465 shares and 192 comments.
Unsuprisingly WWE’s social media team constantly tweeted throughout the event, tweeting on average 6 times during the matches and 51 times during the Royal Rumble itself.
As expected, the match between John Cena and AJ Styles earned the most re-tweets and likes with 48,460 from 9 tweets. This was followed by the match between Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns which received 6,722 re-tweets and 10,221 likes from 9 tweets.
The Tag Team Championship match which would only appear during the Pre-Show earned the third amount of responses, with a combined total of 10,260 re-tweets and likes from 7 tweets.
The Royal Rumble Match On Twitter
WWE tweeted each time a new entrant joined the Royal Rumble match, we recorded the responses in terms of likes and re-tweets each received, giving an indication of the popularity of the superstar.
Interestingly NXT superstar Tye Dillinger, who had previously had an unmemorable stint on the now defunct ECW brand as Gavin Spears in 2008/2009, generated the most responses, with 2,400 Re-tweets and 3,700 likes.
Veteran the The Undertaker, who first appeared in a Royal Rumble match in 1991 generated a close second amount of responses with 2,400 Re-Tweets and 3,600 likes.
Goldberg’s entrance prompted 4,300 responses, Brock Lesnar & Roman Reigns 3,000 and winner Randy Orton 2,700.
Smackdown’s Mojo Rawley garnered the least amount of response, with only 490 Re-tweets and 673 Likes. Interestingly Braun Strowman, who had been receiving a big push during the past few months generated the third least amount of responses, with only 1,266 users re-tweeting or liking.
WWE posted 36 times during the event. The most responded to post was one featuring John Cena and Ric Flair that was liked 395,544 times and commented 7,329.
The second most popular post featured the Royal Rumble winner Randy Orton, this post was liked 277,521 times and commented 6,374.
The most popular posts featuring Royal Rumble match participants featured Roman Reigns (155,601 likes and 9,805 comments), The Undertaker (151,948 likes and 3,311 comments) and Goldberg (111,034 likes and 974 comments).
Somewhat interestingly, a post match photo of Cruiserweight Champion Neville proved to be quite popular, earning 107,679 likes and 996 comments. This was the seventh most responded to post.
