The afeared nasty weather did n't show up for the Super Bowl on Sunday . Neither did the Denver Broncos . But Madison Avenue , with its hundreds of millions of dollars worth of commercials , was there . And it looks like the ad men and women have caught on to this whole social media thing . For the first time , more than half of all commercials aired during the big game included a social hashtag . From Chevy 's # SilveradoStrong to Coke 's # AmericaIsBeautiful , 57 % of the ads featured hashtags , those searchable terms that have spread from Twitter to Instagram , Facebook and other platforms . That 's up from 50 % last year and 7 % the year before -- a remarkable ascent , considering that Audi made news just three years ago when it became the first Super Bowl advertiser to push to Twitter . Despite Twitter 's buzz factor , 1.2 billion-user-strong Facebook may still be Madison Avenue 's platform of choice . Facebook got five specific mentions in ads , compared to Twitter 's four . `` Several large trends are converging to fuel this phenomenon , '' wrote Kevin Bobowski for AdWeek . `` Television 's power is waning , making must-see TV that consumers choose to watch live ... more valuable to advertisers than ever before . But as the price tags for these live TV spots rise , brands want something more than 30 seconds of TV exposure for their $ 4 million . They are finding that extra value on social media . '' There was plenty of action for them to court . Twitter reported that a record 24.9 million tweets about the game were sent during the telecast . That topped the 24.1 million from last year 's game . And while that increase can be attributed , at least in part , to the growth of social media use as a whole , it further establishes Twitter as a Super Bowl party within a party , where people expect to share , and be entertained , during big live events . The biggest Twitter moment came when Seattle 's Percy Harvin ran a kickoff back 87 yards to open the second half and , essentially , seal the Broncos ' fate . That generated a whopping 381,605 tweets per minute . That was much higher than Twitter 's peak during last year 's Super Bowl , which reached 231,500 tweets per minute during the Superdome blackout of the third quarter . `` Not only do consumers watch the game and the ads on their televisions , but they keep their devices at the ready to engage with that content , '' said Scott Allan , of social-marketing firm AddThis . Cars led the way , according to AddThis . Maserati , Kia and Jaguar saw the biggest increases in the amount of social engagement after their commercials aired , according to the company 's analysis . Coca-Cola also generated lots of social chatter with an ad featuring citizens singing `` America the Beautiful '' in a range of languages , from English to Spanish to Arabic . Some took to Twitter to complain that the song should be sung in English , which prompted others to defend the ad and cry racism . Even folks who did n't fork over the millions of bucks needed to get airtime during the game were doing their best to get noticed . JC Penney made a splash with tweets like this : `` Toughdown Seadawks ! ! Is sSeattle going toa runaway wit h this ? ? ? '' Users and some media outlets speculated aloud that a tipsy or illiterate employee had commandeered the JC Penney account before the retailer revealed that it was all a promotion for mittens . And , believe it or not , there were even some social media moments from the game that did n't involve anyone trying to make money . From Broadway Joe Namath 's throwback fur coat to Hillary Clinton 's swipe at Fox News , social media followed , and amplified , every moment ( that Hillary post had been retweeted more than 55,000 times by midday Monday ) . On Monday morning , 9 of the 10 top-trending terms on Facebook were Super Bowl-related , from Bill O'Reilly 's interview with President Barack Obama before the game to the touching text received by Broncos player Shaun Phillips from his son after the game .
More than half of Super Bowl ads included social hashtags . The most popular hashtag was #SuperBowl, followed by #TheGame, #PlayoffsChallenge, and #KeepItReal. The game generated nearly 25 million tweets , more than last year . Experts say mobile-ready viewers expect to be social .