Rugby: RWC hot site on Facebook

The Pope is a member. So are Barack Obama, Oprah and Coldplay. Now the Rugby World Cup's Facebook site is about to become the biggest in New Zealand, with more than 200,000 members.

Facebook is the social networking website that allows members to add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. It is also a tool used by businesses to alert fans not only to relevant news but also to interact with other fans, participate in polls and post their own comments, photos and videos.

Rugby World Cup organisers set up their Facebook site in September and this weekend, it exceeded 200,000 members. They also have their own twitter and YouTube site.

"We are using this as a communication and business tool," RWC 2011 chief executive Martin Snedden said. "We just decided social media was going to be a huge way of communicating with people.

"Obviously we didn't invent the trend but the use of it for major events is something quite new. The Olympics haven't had a site until a few weeks ago but I think they are only just now coming to understand that if you actively work the site just how useful it is.

"We are going up by an average of 2000 people a day and next week, it will very likely become the biggest Facebook page in New Zealand."

The All Blacks boast the most popular site, which on Friday had 210,310 fans.

The Rugby World Cup's Facebook site has news releases as well as archival footage of such things as David Kirk lifting the William Webb Ellis Trophy, the All Blacks doing the haka, movie trailers for Invictus, John Key's appearance on the Letterman TV show and even a webcam for the new stadium being built in Dunedin.

A survey of the site revealed just 15 per cent of members were from New Zealand. France and Argentina provided the most members, followed by New Zealand, South Africa, Italy, the UK, Ireland, the US, Australia and Canada. It also revealed two-thirds of people signed up to the site were men and 40 per cent were aged between 18 and 24.

Their YouTube site attracted an older audience (45-54-year-olds were the biggest users) with 83 per cent of viewers men.

The RWC Facebook page still had some way to go to catch up to others around the world.

Last August, it was reported Starbucks had surpassed Coca Cola as the most popular brand, with 3.8 million fans.

But it compares favourably with other New Zealand individuals and brands, including Air New Zealand (10,499 fans), Tui billboards (46,561), John Key (17,449) and the All Whites (13,996). Comedic duo The Flight of the Conchords can boast 676,438 fans.