• by Gavin O'Malley , February 2, 2015

The New England Patriots took home the shiny trophy last night, but they weren’t the only winners of Super Bowl XLIX. Social media had a record night, and no platform saw more game-related action than Facebook.

Around the world, more than 65 million people participated in the Super Bowl conversation throughout the day — up about 30% from 50 million last year.

On Sunday, the platform was home to about 265 million game-related posts, comments and likes — which added up to the highest level of activity for any NFL Championship game.

Capping off a thrilling contest, social activity peaked in the final moments of the game, when Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler made a game-winning goal-line interception. At around that time, more than 1.3 million unique People Per Minute were posting, commenting, and liking content related to the Super Bowl, by Facebook’s count.

“This year … we [were] taking a closer look at the audience in the U.S., identifying key moments in the game when engagement peaked,” according to a Facebook spokesman.

Other social activity drivers included Katy Perry's “Firework” finale at halftime, when 1.02 million unique People Per Minute were posting on Facebook.

The social conversation was most active in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, and Massachusetts — i.e., Patriots territory. Washington — home to the losing Seattle Seahawks — also drove much of the conversation.

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was the most mentioned player on social media, followed by Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch and quarterback Russell Wilson.

For the first time this year, Facebook sold a “Big Game” targeting segment, which tried to connect advertisers with the broader conversation around the big game in real time. It included engagement around party planning, sharing recipes, buying a new flatscreen TV, half-time show commentary, and chatter about particular TV ads.

Last year, by contrast, advertisers could only target their spots by broad interest categories like “Football” or “Seattle Seahawks.”