Super Bowl XLVII Sets Twitter Record, Amassing 24.1M Tweets Thanks To Beyoncé And Power Outage

The Super Bowl matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens certainly had its bizarre moments, and Twitter was there to document all of them. From Jacoby Jones’ two touchdowns to Ray Lewis to Joe Flacco to the rare malfunctioning that caused a 30-plus-minute power outage at the New Orleans, La., Superdome stadium, Super Bowl XLVII was riddled with tweet-worthy events.

On Sunday night, Twitter posted their statistics from the big event, announcing that more than 24 million tweets were sent out over the course of the night. According to their blog post, by the time the second half began (with Jacoby Jones’ 109-yard kickoff return), the number of tweets had already surpassed the total from last year’s Super Bowl between the New York Giants and New England Patriots.

Here’s a list of the most-tweeted moments from the Super Bowl. The statistics are measured in Tweets Per Minute, or TPM.

- Power outage: 231,500 TPM
- 108-yard kickoff return for Ravens TD by Jones: 185,000 TPM
- Clock expires; Ravens win: 183,000 TPM
- Jones catches 56 yard pass for Ravens TD (end of second quarter): 168,000 TPM
- Gore TD for 49ers: 131,000 TPM

Besides the game, the Super Bowl halftime show, featuring Beyoncé and a surprise reunion by Destiny’s Child, was another key moment, according to Twitter. The company blog post said Beyoncé’s spectacular halftime performance generated 5.5 million tweets, nearly 4 percent of the total tweets sent out regarding Super Bowl XLVII. The end of her performance garnered the most amount of tweets per minute, hitting a TPM of 268,000, more than the power outage that paused the game. Beyoncé's peak moment, as well as her entire performance, was the apex of Twitter activity throughout the entire night, beating out the actual game.

The Destiny’s Child reunion and their rendition of “Single Ladies” also ranked pretty high on the TPM scale, reading 257,500 and 252,500 TPMs, respectively. Even first lady Michelle Obama tweeted in support of Beyoncé during the halftime show:

Obviously, the 33-minute power outage that occurred early in the second half was one of the biggest stories of the Super Bowl. As we previously wrote, the power outage was the most-tweeted about moment of the Super Bowl, not counting the halftime show. From jokes and parody accounts like @superbowllights to David Gregory tweeting a picture of the Superdome with half the lights off, both regular fans and journalists alike were following the developing story on Twitter and the network broadcast.

One of the biggest surprises of the power outage was the way companies were able to capitalize off of the power outage and turn it into a sly and witty marketing scheme. Oreo, Tide and Calvin Klein all tweeted about the power outage, but the clear winner was Oreo, whose well-timed photo -- with the caption “You Can Still Dunk In The Dark” -- was retweeted more than 15,000 times.

So how does Super Bowl XLVII stack up to previous Twitter records? The 2012 presidential election managed to get 20 million total tweets and became the most tweeted-about event in United States political history. Also, President Barack Obama’s tweet was the most retweeted post on Twitter ever, amassing more than 246,000 retweets. However, Super Bowl XLVII beat that record with 24 million tweets, becoming the most tweeted-about sports event ever thanks to Beyoncé, a random power outage and some spectacular plays.