In the aftermath of the 119th Boston Marathon, we’re left with fantastic photos, the impressive times and stories of thousands of runners, and as this is 2015, naturally social media data too. As a measurement of the public’s interest and opinion, social media produced several notable statistics and other reactions to the Marathon.

In the above graphic, thanks to Boston-based company Crimson Hexagon, we have analysis on the volume of tweets from Marathon Monday. The event itself (@bostonmarathon) was predictably the most popular related hashtag, by far. After that, it seems that Twitter users are more interested in race contenders. Runners like Desiree Linden (@des_linden) and Meb Keflezighi (@runmeb) sat at the top.

Notably, a survivor of the 2013 Marathon tragedy, Rebekah Gregory DiMartino, crossed the finish line and reacted with understandable emotion. This attracted a large amount of attention, as it was a moving scene:

Tatyana McFadden of the women’s wheelchair division was the only U.S. participant on the day to actually win, and she also finished high up the list. It was a strong USA focus, given that no international runners were overly popular among Twitter crowds.

Here’s additional information from Crimson Hexagon, including stats compiled by their Affinities feature:

  • One striking fact: Just under 30-percent of social media activity about the Marathon originated in Boston. Most activity actually came from users in other parts of the U.S. as well as around the world. After Boston itself, a majority of activity came from New York, Austin, Washington DC, Nairobi, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto.
  • There were the most retweeted tweets pertaining to the Marathon:

According to Crimson Hexagon, the following is statistically proven about Marathon fans in comparison to Red Sox fans:

  • 1000x more likely to be interested in training than Red Sox fans
  • 18x more likely to be interested in nutrition than Red Sox fans
  • 5x more likely to be interested in fitness than Red Sox fans
  • 4x more likely to be interested in entrepreneurship than Red Sox fans
  • Conversely, Red Sox fans are 4x more likely to be interested in wine than Boston Marathon fans

Of course, it should be pointed out that comparing fans of a running competition and baseball (one of the last active sports on a play-to-play basis) shouldn’t come as a surprise. Nonetheless, it is notable.

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