By Nick Butler

Social media promotion during the WKF World Championships in Berlin has been hailed as a major success ©WKFA successful strategy to boost promotion and social media accessibility has been highlighted by the World Karate Federation (WKF) following the World Championships in Berlin.


During the Championships earlier this month, where around 1,200 athletes from over 130 nations participated, there was widespread coverage via both television and social media.

The biennial event was broadcast live in over 120 countries by 15 different channels, with this representing a huge increase on the 46 countries in which the 2006 World Championships in Tampere, Finland, were broadcast.

There were more than one million views on the WKF YouTube channel, which also offered High Definition videos throughout the Championships, along with backstage scenes, interviews, and live stream of the finals in countries that did not have television coverage.

During the five days of action, the channel saw 1.243.030 video downloads and 5.721 new subscribers, to bring the total to 68.883 subscribers since the site was launched in 2012.

Activity around Championships of Bremen 2014 has also been "outstanding" on social media platforms, the WKF has claimed, with thousands of supporters kept informed on a daily basis through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,

The WKF enjoyed unprecedented interest on its Facebook page during the Championships ©FacebookThe WKF enjoyed unprecedented interest on its Facebook page during the Championships ©Facebook



As a result, the official WKF Facebook page achieved a great success, with 3.216 new followers and a weekly total reach of 513.323, while the WKF Twitter page now has nearly 9,000 followers and the Instagram account, 14,400.

"Informative" coverage of the Championships was completed with the presentation of the new official WKF photo site, found here, where National Federations, media, competitors and general fans could visit and visualise over 5,000 photographs of the competition.

The site enjoyed over 106.400 visits and now has 5,430 subscribers, with this another major boost for the sport as it aims to illustrate its growth and rising appeal and popularity as it builds towards possible Olympic inclusion.

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