Stay Connected With The Fifa World Cup 2014

Many of us want to be involved with the World Cup, but work schedules and busy lives interfere with getting to sit down and watch the games to support the U.S National Team. With social media like Twitter, it's been made even easier to stay updated with the scores of your favorite teams and even interacting with them as they are down in Brazil at this year's World Cup.

Lauren Fraser, Twitter's Sports Partnership Manager, has given me the details on who to follow and what hashtags to keep up with as you are cheering on your favorite teams at the World Cup this year.

Welcome Lauren. For those people who can't be at the World Cup and then those who can't watch everything live as it happens, what are some of the best ways they can stay updated and feel like they are there in person?

So as you know the World Cup is a massive global event. In 2010, over 3.2 billion people tuned in to watch some part of the World Cup and Twitter is really fits in well as one of the best places to follow the conversation live because it's a global public live platform.

In terms of the best ways to tune in, I would say the number one thing to do is follow. It's super easy to sign up for Twitter, and then most of the teams are on Twitter and have accounts for the top players. Then also make sure to follow Fifa World Cup. They are the one stop shop for everything World Cup.

The nice thing about something like Twitter is that you really can get a feel for the players, coaches, and teams interacting (maybe not necessarily on the field, but rather those sitting out) and get a look into the behind-the-scenes from scores to nerves and even the celebrations.

Definitely between matches, players have been tweeting and giving you a behind-the-scenes look at life in Brazil and how the team is preparing for their next match. But there's also the people surrounding the teams from great analysts, former players, and I personally recommend the Women's National World Cup team to follow for their insight. So there will be a lot of people surrounding the teams with great content as well.

Well, who seem to be some of the more popular players and teams that people want to follow and really seem engaged with?

In terms of players, Cristiano Ronaldo is a global superstar on Twitter. He's @Cristiano and definitely a must follow account. Then there's also Neymar who is @Neymarjr on Twitter. Neymar is on the Brazilian National Team and has some great insight from on the ground in Brazil.

That's the cool thing about something like the World Cup because while we love rooting for the home team, soccer isn't necessarily as big in this country as it is globally so we get to see how hard every single team trains and how much passion they have for the sport.

It definitely is a global sport. The U.S team is really competitive and will be great to follow this year as well. So I definitely recommend following the home team @USsoccer. Leading up to Brazil, they were tweeting behind-the-scenes content, releasing the rosters on Twitter, and now they've been live-tweeting every game.

That's awesome. Now have you noticed any predictions among fans over which country will do better than another country?

There's tons of debate over the platform. For the U.S specifically, our group has been named the “group of death”. It's a highly challenging group and there's definitely been a lot of conversation surrounding the National team and whether they would make it out of the first round or not.

Another cool thing with an event like the World Cup and utilizing social media like Twitter is that you can see all of the support from different sources like other sports teams and then, as you mentioned, the Women's National Team. You can really see how much of a family it becomes in this competitive environment.

Absolutely. And we see lots of other athletes participating. For instance, Kobe Bryant is a huge soccer fan, and is down in Brazil tweeting at the team and about the games. I would definitely look out other major superstars and celebrities to really be following and rallying around the team as well.

So it's not even just about following those people specific to soccer and the teams, but following those celebrities who you know are avid soccer fans?

Absolutely.

What are some of the hashtags that we can use so that we can join the conversation while we are watching the World Cup from home?

The two main hashtags for English are #WorldCup and #Brazil2014. There are also numerous hashtags in other languages, but those are the two best ones to use for searching on Twitter to get the top tweets about the event to see what's happening and also to tag in your own tweets as you are watching the game.

So as you are watching the World Cup this year, don't forget to use those hashtags and follow your favorite players and teams. The next game for the U.S is tonight versus Ghana.