Twitter brings back 'hashflags' for Football World Cup 2014; here's how to add a country's flag to your tweets

New Delhi: After issuing a comprehensive guide explaining users how to follow the Football World Cup 2014 on Twitter, the company has now brought back its hashflag feature it introduced in the 2010 World Cup.

According to Twitter, users who tweet three-letter country codes for participating nations - such as BRA for Brazil or ESP for Spain - will see the country's flag appear in their tweets. Twitter says it will then tally up all of the tweets with hashflags over the next few days and unveil The World Cup of Tweets bracket prior to the first match this Thursday between host country Brasil and Croatia.

Twitter last week in a blog post touted "the only real-time #WorldCup global viewing party will be on Twitter, where you can track all 64 matches, experience every goal and love every second, both on and off the pitch."

Users on Twitter can also follow individual teams or players and use the hashtags #WorldCup to tweet about the matches, and follow official accounts such as @FIFAWorldCup, @ussoccer for the United States team and @CBF_Futebol for Brazil's soccer governing body, for example. Clicking on the #WorldCup or #WorldCup2014 hashtags, meanwhile, will take you to Twitter's hubs for the event. (Here is a guide detaling how you can stay up-to-date on your favourite matches, teams and players using Twitter.)

The World Cup is the planet's most widely viewed sporting event. According to FIFA, which organises the tournament, an estimated 909.6 million viewers watched at least one minute of the final 2010 game when Spain beat the Netherlands.

In comparison, nearly 900 million people watched at least part of the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics. On Twitter, more than 24.9 million tweets were sent out during this year's Super Bowl, up from 13.7 million just two years earlier.