By Janette Speyer, Web Success Team –  

It’s World Cup season and Twitter is ready for the party. There were over 12.2 million Tweets during the Brazil – Croatia opening match with Brazil star Neymar Jr. the most mentioned player (who scored 2 goals) and gained 163,000+ followers!

As many of you already know, this formidable application has been taking center stage for everything from politics and elections to sports and entertainment. There is no doubt that even if Twitter itself is not experiencing much growth, it is still a formidable player on the world “pitch”.

This morning when I signed on to my account I noticed that I was being encouraged by Twitter to take action and participate. This is the first time I have noticed to what extend Twitter is going to make this World Cup an event to remember on a massive scale.

Twitter is no stranger to fan conversation and they are going to take center stage in this tournament. So now is the time to capitalize on the World Cup social media rush. What an opportunity for so many people to come together from all countries and join forces for this worldwide party. Even the soccer players are reaching out to their fans using social media by creating verified Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts for themselves and their teams.

When I opened my account this morning I was asked to join in the #WorldCup fun with several different prompts. Here are a few things you can do to follow along:

1. When you sign on to your account, follow your favorite team and send them a #shoutout.
2. Follow your favorite team’s matches by clicking on the scoreboard to the left of your home feed. You will also get instant updates on scores.
3. You can follow #WorldCup which will probably capture the trending topics for the duration of the tournament.
4. @twitterSports has compiled a list of all the players’ verified Twitter accounts so you can tweet to them directly.
5. Follow team hashtags like #tousfansdesbleus (France), #LaRoja(Spain), #EngvHol(UK) to name a few.
6. Last but not least @FIFAcom and @FIFAWorldCup have all the exciting updates.

So let the games begin and let’s get a tweeting! Gooooal!!!!! See you on twitter: @websuccess