• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, January 26, 2015

NFL teams put a lot of stock in fan support. As a whole, fan cheers (and jeers for opposing teams) are believed to form a “12th man” — in addition to a team's 11 players on the field.

Leading up to this year’s Super Bowl, some researchers are wondering about the real power of fans, and whether their influence can be measured on social media.

Using its social monitoring tools, for example, Falcon Social looked at which teams are leading in terms of comments, shares, likes, retweets, follows, and other social statistics.

Since the playoffs began earlier this month, Falcon found that the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots have generated more social buzz than any of their rivals. Coincidence or not, these are the two teams that will be competing for championship rings on February 1.

Further, Seahawks fans have been louder on social than Patriots fans, Falcon found.

By the social management firm’s count, Seahawks supporters have posted a variation on “Go Seahawks” 31,000 times on social media, compared to the Patriots’ 25,000.

The fact is, there is no established relationship between fan activity on social media and their support at games. Also, because of its neutral setting, the Super Bowl is notorious for taking the 12th man out of the equation.
 
That said, fans are doing the majority of their squawking on Facebook — with the social giant accounting for 53% of all football-related activity. Since the playoffs got going, Instagram has seen about 20% of fan action, while Twitter has accounted for about 10% of the activity.

Not surprisingly, Seahawks fans were loudest on social on January 18 — the day their team mounted a miraculous comeback against the Green Bay Packers. That day, fans used variations on the term “Go Seahawks” 8,000 times, by Falcon’s count.

It also should come as no surprise that a good deal of social activity is devoted to trash talk. Indeed, the top trending keywords among Seahawks fans’ have been “Aaron” and “cheese,”  referring to Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, and Green Bay’s affinity for cheese.

Meanwhile, Patriots fans were also cheering the loudest on social this past Sunday, January 18, after they knocked out the Indianapolis Colts for a spot in the Super Bowl. All together, Pats’ fans generated about 6,000 mentions of variations on “Go Patriots.”