It is the most anticipated event in football where friends and family get together to watch the biggest game of the year, the Super Bowl.  Super Bowl XLV set a new record for the most viewers, breaking the record held for 27 years by the television show M.A.S.H.

The television event is most commonly known for industries to introduce new commercials, which will run for months to come.  However, this year many companies looked toward social media as another way to interact with the audience providing hashtag and online options.

Coca-Cola launched an application that had polar bears, which interacted with viewers via Twitter and Facebook.  The two bears each supported a different team showing reaction for each play that was made during the Super Bowl.  The polar bears would also react to the commercials including falling asleep during rival Pepsi’s commercial.

Other companies such as Budweiser, Audi, and H&M showed hashtags during their commercial in hopes of getting viewers to talk about the commercial on Twitter. The commercial advertising David Beckham’s new line of clothing for H&M was one of the most talked about commercials of the night.

While some companies succeeded in embracing social media others like Toyota took their measures too far.  Toyota made the decision to spam Twitter accounts with phrases that mentioned “Camry Effect a Friend Giveaway.”  Toyota’s efforts were unwelcome by many and were vocalized by a blog on The Next Web.

Proof of the large impact social media had on this year’s event was with the statistics.  Twitter reported 13.7 million tweets about the Super Bowl this year.

#SB46 showed viewers are embracing social media and ready for companies to continue to use the platform for them to take their thoughts beyond the party.