On 13 January, 1,100 guests at Zürich’s Kongresshaus had front row seats as the FIFA Ballon d’Or ceremony built to a climax shortly before 20:00 CET. Online, a new phenomenon was taking place; 24 million users in 24 hours to be exact.

Whether it was on FIFA.com, Facebook, Twitter or Youtube, fans had unique access to all the build-up, as FIFA’s digital output brought fans in 209 Member Associations as close to the action as possible.

On Facebook, one post alone on FIFA’s Youtube channel reached 18.9m people. On Twitter, there were more than one million tweets during the 90-minute event, and more than six million mentions of Cristiano, Messi & Ribery on the day. On Youtube, there were more than three million live plays of the ceremony; one of the biggest live streams ever. And on FIFA.com, more than one million fans voted for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to win the Puskas Award.

Alex Stone, FIFA’s Social Media Manager gave us some insights into the day;

“The FIFA Ballon d’Or is a 24 hour event, so the plan was simple: to bring fans as close as possible to the action, wherever they were in the world, and make them feel part of it.  Pre-event we invited fans on both Facebook & Twitter to submit questions that were asked to the stars at the press conferences 4 hours before the show, and beamed onto the wall in front of the world’s media.

An hour before the show, the Twitter Mirror was used to capture all the stars as they arrived off the red carpet, and working together with Getty Images, we were able to bring photos from behind-the-scenes throughout the day both on Twitter, Facebook and on FIFA.com’s Liveblog that started 5 hours before the ceremony.

During the Gala ceremony, fans could choose to view the show on FIFA.com, at FIFA on Youtube, or even via a live stream on the FIFA Ballon d’Or Facebook page – so wherever you were, and whatever your preferred platform, there was hopefully something for everyone.  The results achieved on the night across all platforms were hugely exciting, and give us a lot to think about for future events, not least the forthcoming World Cup.  There’s only 136 days to go!”

To see the below infographic in full size just click on the image, it links to the original PDF.