To describe 2018 as an ‘interesting’ year for British politics would be something of an understatement. The chaos and gridlock regarding Brexit has continued, the anger and division within the country has grown and there still seems to be no front-runner in terms of a solution to the UK’s plan to leave the EU.

Over the last 12 months, we have seen the rising popularity of ideas that would have appeared outlandish in the months following the Referendum. On the right of the Conservative Party we have a figures such as Boris Johnson pushing for a ‘No Deal’ Brexit, whilst throughout Parliament there are vocal MPs, like David Lammy and Vince Cable angling for a People’s Vote, which could potentially reverse the outcome in 2016.

Consequently, in the digital age we believed it would be interesting to study how parties and public figures have been affected on social media in the last 12 months. Has Jeremy Corbyn’s growth far superseded Theresa May’s? Which politician has grown the most? In this post, we will discuss the growth of politics in the UK across Twitter, the platform most commonly used by MPs and a source for instant news in the 21st century.

MPs Twitter Growth in 2018

We have analysed nine different political figures and their growth over the last 12 months on Twitter and this ranges from Jeremy Corbyn to Nigel Farage.

Interestingly, it is clear that Twitter users have flocked to alternative politicians during the Brexit debate. Huge growth rates for David Lammy and Jacob Rees-Mogg goes to show how a constant media presence, combined with active social media, has helped these two politicians grow their following.

David Lammy

The MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, has seen his profile rise in the last 12 months by a huge +50%. This is likely a reaction to the Lammy pushing for a People’s Vote due to the delays and problems with Brexit. Furthermore, his follower number now makes him the 5th most followed MP in Parliament, with fellow Remainder and Second Referendum advocate Caroline Lucas coming in 6th.

Jacob Rees-Mogg

Rees-Mogg has a growth rate of 143%, which points to his politics and often vocal opinions resonating with the people and press powerfully in 2018. Furthermore, he has even acquired more followers in 2018 than Boris Johnson who is consistently linked with the Number 10 job after May. The Mogg effect is clearly a consequence of the Leave supporters desire to see a hard Brexit, however it also reaffirms that we are living in a period where the ‘outsider’ is generating a lot of support from the general public. This was a trend, arguably started by Farage in the 21st century, and coincided with his major victory in 2016’s Leave vote.

Definitive and vocal politicians popular on Social Media

It’s become clear in the last twelve months, that the public’s interest in alternative political figures has grown hugely. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s commitment to Brexit has seen his influence on Twitter grow, whilst Lammy’s support for a People’s Vote has had a similar effect. This marries up with the popular notion, that traditional politicians are being sidelined due their apparent inability to deal with the current crisis. Criticism that traditional politicians often communicate in a sanitised, rhetorical and vague manner, has perhaps helped fuel the growth of alternative politicians such as Rees-Mogg and Lammy (who are notable for their direct, clear and sometimes controversial approach).

So what do these charts mean? How important is social media, and in this case Twitter? Primarily, that the parties have continued to grow at a  similar rate and there is very little to suggest a huge shift in followers, which considering the focus on Brexit, is understandable.

It should be no surprise that Johnson, Farage, Mogg and Lammy hold no to minor sway in the Cabinet or Shadow Cabinet. However, it is worth noting that the leaders of the main two parties are still the leaders in followers, and May’s growth has been strong in 2018 and yet the question remains is this simply due to people’s desire to see some leadership from the PM, or a genuine support for her ideas.

acuity made its TV debut this Thursday on BBC 1’s ‘Look North’ programme. acuity’s very own Liam Walsh provided a short interview on why the business decided to ‘set up shop’ at the Piece Mill in Halifax.

The segment was focused on the recent resurgence and renovation to old Yorkshire mill buildings and how technology and digital start-ups were opting for office space there rather than new purpose-built offices.

acuity moved into the recently renovated Piece Mill building in Halifax earlier this year. The building is part of Leeds Beckett University‘s enterprise programme, helping start-ups access services such as mentoring, funding and high-quality office space. Liam told Look North,

“We didn’t want to go for a new build, we didn’t want to go for something that was just a bit drab and didn’t have any character. We wanted to be part of the renaissance that’s happening in the town.”

Since moving into the Piece Mill, acuity has been able to go from a business set up in a back bedroom to providing a stunning office for a growing team, first-class meeting facilities and access to an ultra-fast gigabyte broadband connection.

acuity founder, Sean Walsh, stated,

“2018 has been a fantastic year for the business with our new premises and substantial turnover growth. We’ve also been able to welcome Liam on board as a co-Director, relocating from London with a strong background in digital operations having previously worked at the likes of The Telegraph and Videology.

We’re been working hard on our digital intelligence platform and have already delivered several digital performance audits to help clients better measure and understand their performance. 2019 is already shaping up to an incredibly exciting year for the company.”

If you’re thinking about your digital strategy for 2019 or want to better understand what worked (and what didn’t!) across all your digital performance channels, give us a shout and we’d be happy to show you how our forensic digital audits could help your business.

Since its establishment in 1877, Wimbledon has become the most respected and coveted tennis championship in the world with players dreaming of lifting the pineapple topped trophy and fans flocking to SW19 each year to catch a glimpse of the tennis elite in action. The competition has enthralled audiences with rivalries such as Borg/McEnroe, Federer/Nadal and in recent years home fans have been rewarded for years of pain, with Andy Murray’s two victories on the grass.

With tennis competitions bringing out passionate fans, our analyst team here at fiacuity were intrigued to know just how loyal these fans would be in 2018, with football’s World Cup taking place concurrently with The Championships. Would this lead to less engaged fans than 2017 or would Wimbledon’s social strategy be clever enough to find a solution to this. Primarily our analysts wanted to take a look at Instagram, a platform for is brilliant for evoking emotion and passion, as well as allowing fans to engage quickly whether they are at the grounds or watching at home.

How successful was Wimbledon on Instagram in 2018?

Wimbledon has successfully used Instagram over the last few years as a method of connecting with fans on a more emotional level. Instagram is built around pictures and videos which arguably  evoke sentiment more easily than words and the tournament has taken advantage of this exceptionally well. What is most impressive, however, has been the success they’ve seen this year in spite of competition for attention from the World Cup. The account @wimbledon has seen a huge increase in engagements from fans suggesting that the social media strategy employed has paid dividends.

In 2017, the Instagram account posted 240 times and received 6.5 million likes and yet, in a World Cup year they posted 120 times more and increased their ‘Like-growth’ by nearly 100%. For a platform like Instagram it’s important to constantly remain relevant and therefore constantly posting about the event is vitally important hence why Wimbledon increased there overall posts by 50%. In could be argued that with a more competitive field in 2018, the media team sought to increase their output as a method to ensure their message was been seen by their Instagram audience. In fact, the Wimbledon account posted 270 more posts from 2-15 July than the Official FIFA World Cup account to ensure relevancy and their position in the social conciousness.

Furthermore, there was also a focus put upon the iconic players who were competing this season which generates more interactions from their fans. For example, despite exiting the competition at the Quarter Final stage, Roger Federer received over 9% of all posts on @wimbledon and consequently generated nearly 12% of the likes. Djokovic received the most likes, with 2.4 million most likely due to his success as well as a particular special family moment and an epic 5 setter with Rafa Nadal, who was the second most popular player at this year’s competition.

Outside of Centre Court, Wimbledon also used their account to promote the ‘Culture of Wimbledon’. This is the most prestigious Grand Slam in tennis and one of the most talked about events in the sporting calendar and therefore in a year where Britain didn’t have Andy Murray there was a huge focus placed upon the glamour of the club with a number of posts about the celebrities such as Drake and Benedict Cumberbatch attending the event as well the royal family. In fact the most popular post from the two weeks was Emma Watson taking her seat in SW19 along with a witty tagline, which reached 206,000 likes. This far surpassed last year’s most popular post which reached 127,000. Combining tennis and sophistication enables Wimbledon to transcend an average tennis competition and become a fashion event, or a royal engagement, which allows for audiences with different interests to become engaged and assimilated.

The account has also enjoyed success from posting videos about other great British traditions, such as Pimm’s in the summer, Strawberries & Cream as well as a beautifully scenic photos of the sun setting behind the London Skyline. Wimbledon seeks to celebrate everything great about Britain and London in order to distinguish itself from other sporting events and by combining these factors they have ensured that in 2018, with the World Cup being played simultaneously, Wimbledon was able to not only maintain his fan engagement across Instagram but dramatically improve it, which is a wonderful achievement.

What themes can we see across the whole of social media?

Primarily, there appears to be a gender bias across social media in terms of players’ popularity. As discussed, on Instagram the most popular players were Djokovic, Nadal & Federer with Williams & Kerber following them. Interestingly across the female players Williams and Kerber received far more posts than the joint third most featured women, Venus Williams, Katskina, Ostapenko & Cibulkova (all 4). One could argue that this is due to them both being finalists, however in the men’s game Kevin Anderson still received 17 featured posts. Therefore it is likely that it unexpected nature of the first week of Wimbledon, in which many of the top seeded female players contributed to @wimbledon not necessarily knowing which underdog’s journey to follow and therefore tracked all of the potential second week competitors leading to a dispersion of posts across players.

However whilst the male players received the most love on Instagram, the Women’s game saw their popularity on the rise on Twitter & Facebook. Across Twitter, the most liked tweet of the two weeks was Serena Williams’ post final interview and her motivation for competing, whilst on Facebook the top two most viewed content was the congratulatory post to Kerber on her win which was viewed 8.4m and content on ‘Ladies Day (4.6m). Furthermore, Kerber’s win was also the most liked post on Facebook with 320,000 people interacting with it in this manner.

Moreover, this year will have also seen fans interact positively with heartfelt and family oriented posts. Serena’s post match interview revolved around her desire to play at Wimbledon for mothers everywhere: ‘To all the moms out there, I was playing out there for you today and I tried’. This received a rousing reception on court and across the Wimbledon twitter account. The second most popular tweet on @Wimbledon was then Novak Djokovic’s post match final interview where spoke with joy about his son’s support court-side. This reached 35k likes on Twitter, 201k on Instagram and was the most shared post from the official Wimbledon Facebook page with 17k. Across Facebook, Novak also reached 7.4m views from two father-son related videos thus supporting the idea that family has played a big part in engaging fans who are able to easily relate to this content, more so than a world class backhand.

Want to know more about successful social strategies?

Fiacuity is committed to analysing the digital activity for all brands and aiding in identifying potential threats as well as opportunities and insights into ROI strategies.

The first record of a cricket match in known history is the 16th century, thus making it one of the oldest team sports in the world and is currently only second to football as the world’s most popular sport. In the UK the elite club competition is the County Championship which has a passionate following around the country with many of the players representing England internationally. A huge benefit for fans is that the cricket season runs throughout the summer unlike Football & Rugby and therefore fans are constantly engaged in following games online or even attending matches when they can, to enjoy a day with friends and family whilst cheering on their county.

However, with the evolution of the internet and the growth in methods through which fans can connect with the clubs, it has become vitally important for clubs to protect their fans who visit their website for news, tickets or merchandise. The digital age is brilliant for connecting with fans on a daily basis – which wasn’t possible in the past however it comes with risks such as identity theft and online hacking.

County Cricket clubs have embraced this change in the majority however 49% of clubs are still using non-HTTPS sites which can cause future problems with fan confidence as well as SEO strategy.

What is HTTPS?

HTTPS is a method of ensuring your website remains secure and encrypts the information that is sent between the browser and web server. By doing this, your website is protected from any outside interference, such as hackers who may try and hijack data such as passwords and credit card information. Secure and protected connections prevent this from occurring. Whilst, historically HTTPS were associated with sensitive websites, in the last four years, this has become modicum for most pages across the internet. However, just because your site is HTTPS, doesn’t mean that the site is secure – far from it. HTTPS status does tell search engines and customers that you’ve considered their security and data. Fans may think twice about purchasing tickets on a non-HTTPS site, thereby killing conversion rate.

So what does the current landscape look like?

Why should clubs embrace HTTPS?

Outside of this obvious security, there are a number of alternative reasons why clubs such as Yorkshire & Middlesex have secure sites:

Google Rankings – Google has pushed websites to adopt HTTPS as they want to ensure their users have the best experience on the Chrome browser and consequently this has led to Google recalculating their ranking algorithm to prioritise HTTPS websites over other similar sites which are not secure. Whilst clubs such as Worcestershire have a secure ticket and merchandise sites, only being partially secure can still cause a number of potential problems and have a negative impact on the club’s Google ranking. This could potentially cost the club new fans, who may be interested in the sport but come across another club first. It’s vitally important that clubs build their sites 100% secure, due to the fact that nearly 60% of all online traffic comes from the Chrome browser. Adopting HTTPS can support your club in the long terms by improving your SEO strategy and allowing for more fruitful optimisations. 

Additionally, with the release of Chrome 68 Google is now going to start naming those sites which aren’t HTTPS by replacing the warning exclamation mark, with the words ‘Not Secure’ as well as warning users not to share their personal data on the page, as hackers may be active. If a user is warned about this on your homepage, it may mean they leave the page immediately and therefore may never have the chance to navigate to the secure ticket page. This is why it is so important to ensure your entire site is HTTPS.

Conversion Uplift – Whilst the ins and outs of HTTPS will be better understood by digital professionals, the average user is still aware that exclamatory icon warning them that a site isn’t safe is troubling. In some cases, the ticketing section of a site is secure however leaving the rest of the site non-secure still creates the impression of risk and a dangerous environment. Clubs want their fans to feel safe and secure on their sites, in order to ensure return visits as well as individuals spending more time navigating the site. An HTTP site, may cause anxiety for visitors and they may exit the site more quickly than expected. 

Fan Confidence – This leads on from the conversion uplift, but it is important to remember that any club wants to gain and keep the loyalty of their fans, and therefore if you have a site which isn’t secure you risk presenting yourself as a club which doesn’t take it’s fans safety seriously. Secure your site, and you will inspire confidence and trust.

Google Analytics – Using HTTPS also improves a club’s Google Analytics, which all but one club in the County Championship uses. One of the great benefits of GA, is the ability to see where site traffic originated and therefore allowing a brand to build a strategy around targeting these areas or investing more money into advertising within these spaces. However, if you don’t use HTTPS, referral traffic will be categorised as ‘direct traffic’ which means any marketers will have more difficulty in utilising this data.

So what can cricket clubs do to improve their security and SEO?

Our platform and team specialises in analysing a brand’s entire digital activity to help identify opportunities, threats and return-on-investment.

Juventus have completed one of the biggest signings in their history, and in world football, by capturing the global superstar Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid. The transfer has sent Juventus fans into raptures, with many claiming this is just what the club need to capture another Champions League having gone close in the last few seasons. Ronaldo not only guarantees goals and super human performances on the pitch, but will also generate revenue for the Old Lady as shown by 520,000 shirts being sold in the first 24 hours after the signing was announced.

Therefore, we would also expect this to have an impact on the club’s social media accounts and contribute to some sudden explosion of follows and engagements.

How was Ronaldo boosted Juventus’s Twitter following?

Signing, arguably the greatest player of all time, was always expected to contribute to growth in followers for Juventus and it’s no surprise that Ronaldo’s signing has contributed to a growth rate of 3.58% since July 1st.

This growth equates to an additional 269,210 Twitter followers since July 1st, with 87,380 people following since just Friday which is more than the followers Juventus acquired throughout the whole of June across their Italian and foreign language accounts.

What is Ronaldo’s influence like on Instagram?

Arguably the ‘CR7 Effect’ has been felt most potently across Instagram, where the signing generated a huge amount of buzz and led to Juventus’s follower number increasing massively. The club set up their account in August 2012 and, approximately six years later on July 3rd, they announced that they had reached 10 million followers on the social network, thus becoming only the eighth club in the world to reach double figures.

The club celebrated the fact that in the 2017-18 domestic season they had added 2.5 million new followers to their account, which undoubtedly is a huge success and yet Ronaldo’s signing dwarves these numbers.

Since the start of July, Juventus have increased their Instagram following by 2.5m, with Ronaldo being the source of this upward turn and even between the 13th – 17th July, the account grew by +1,030,000. Despite the huge success Juventus have seen on the pitch over the last few seasons and the global stars in their squad, they have never experienced such a rise in online popularity, as exemplified by matching their season’s growth in just one week.

Moreover, fans aren’t just following the account because of Ronaldo, they are actively engaging in content and the results are stupendous. Prior to the transfer, the most liked posts were the signing of Emre Can and a goodbye to club legend Gianluigi Buffon, who had spent over 20 years with the club and is revered as one of the greatest goalkeepers of all time. This received 601k likes.

Meanwhile, Ronaldo’s announcement on Instagram achieved 3 million likes, and just like that a legend was replaced. A closer look at the engagement on Instagram following the CR7 signing showcase just how influential the Portuguese player is, with the player generating over 23 million likes on posts relating to him alone.

The below infographic explains just how powerful he is. In spite of the club’s massive on field success and their farewell to one of the 21st century’s most iconic players, Ronaldo’s signing is still the biggest thing that has ever happened in the history of the club’s social media. In fact, upon reaching 10m followers Juventus released a list of their ‘10 most liked photos’, and if that list was re-published today all ten would be about CR7.

Finally, in June, the club registered over 14 million likes across all their content on Instagram and saw this increase by a staggering 159% to 36 million likes in July meaning without even kicking a ball, the striker is already dominating the headlines in Turin.

How has YouTube been affected?

Ronaldo’s presence has also contributed to an upward trend on the club’s YouTube account, with the number of subscribers growing by +40% since the start of July and gaining 292k new users.

Ronaldo’s press conference and official signing had a huge role to play in the surge in subscribers and views on YouTube. The club’s account increased by 141k alone with 10.5m people watching content on the channel on 15/7 as the club prepared to introduce Ronaldo to the world.

To conclude, these sort of figures and growth is spectacular and have invigorated Juventus’s social media account with millions of fans interacting with their content in one way or another. This positions the club well to build upon their current status as one of Europe’s strongest clubs both on the pitch as they vie for the Champions League. On social media they have now overtaken Chelsea to become the 5th most followed club on Instagram in Europe. With the Goliath that is CR7 in your team, the sky’s the limit of The Old Lady.

Want to know more about growth rates in sport?

fiacuity specialises in analysing the digital activity for a brand to assist with identifying opportunities and threats as well as advising on ROI strategies.

Which Aviva Premiership team has the most followers on Twitter?

With elite players, historic clubs and devoted fans, it’s no surprise the Aviva Premiership also sees a loyal following across social media with fans consuming content on a daily basis and always eager to learn more about their club and favourite players. Over the last season the match day attendance in the division was over 1.9 million across the league and therefore our analysts team wanted to understand how clubs were embracing social media and whether they were adequately using it. 

Social Media has become a dominant force in the Sports landscape with brands attempting in some way or another to connect with their fans. Fan engagement via social media, ensures that these clubs can communicate with the audience in a more direct way and which bolsters loyalty and support as well as commercial opportunities. The growth in the smartphone has also led to the explosion of social media awareness, with fans being able to engage either in stadiums or whilst second screening at home, without missing a minute of the action. With the nation’s interest in rugby union, both at International & club level as well as live converge across numerous channels, we would expect to see clubs constantly growing across their social media channels.

Therefore the fiacuity analyst team examined how many followers clubs had between January & June, who was using the Twitter platform most successfully as well as researching the growth rates for the league and determining which clubs were seeing ‘standard’ growth and which were performing above the league benchmark. There are of course other metrics to measure success, including engagement, however growth can provide marketing teams with an insight into their brand’s reach and audience size, which clearly can be leveraged for commercial purposes.

Who has the most followers on Twitter?

Twitter is the most popular social media platform for fans of the Premiership and therefore it provides clubs with the largest reach to engage their fans.

Leicester lead the way on Twitter with 143k followers, which is comfortably higher than 2nd place Gloucester. Newcastle Falcons sit bottom of the chart despite their heroics this season, and title winners Saracens are surprisingly mid-table, for a club of their stature and history.

Who had a good Twitter strategy?

As one would expect, Leicester’s Twitter account primarily focuses on match updates, teams news and ticket sales, however Leicester have approached this in an innovative and interesting way. For example, the club have taken something fairly simple such as a match update, and injected it with a little humour such as a GIF, thus adding some personality to the account:

Arguably there is an emotional reason for Leicester’s high numbers of follower, as the club have a firm grasp on the fact that sport is emotive and fans want to feel like they are part of a wider family. Therefore Leicester consistently post content regarding the inner workings of the club, for example thanking a long serving ticket office employee for their service or tweeting messages of encouragement for Tom Young’s, during his wife’s incredible battle with cancer.

By engaging their fans in this manner, the club has been able to foster a spirit of community and creates a relationship which transcends ‘rugby’ and instead creates a bond between club, fan & player. Obviously, fiacuity isn’t advising that all private matters should be used for the sake of social media, but the fact is that connecting with Rugby fans on issues outside of just the 80 minutes on the field can have an incredibly rewarding effect.

What about the clubs’ growth?

Whilst these league tables tell us who is leading the way in terms of followers, it is important to look at the growth rate of these clubs as well. In 2018, the Premiership had an average growth rate across Twitter of 0.76% from January until June.

The above chart presents us with an alternative image of Twitter performance, for example Newcastle are currently bottom of the Twitter Rankings, and yet since Jan 1st, they have posted the most impressive growth figures with 1.55%. Conversely, Northampton who are third in our overall followers table, actually came under the division benchmark with a growth of 0.60% and in between April & May saw a negative growth of -0.03%, meaning they lost followers. 

Interestingly, in spite of Leicester’s positive Twitter strategy it could be argued that the on pitch disappointments this season have contributed to slower growth, whereas Newcastle conversely performed above expectations and therefore receiving more attention. Whilst employing a savvy Twitter policy is important, it’s also worth noting that on field results have a natural impact in on growth and what marketeers should look to do is limit this to the best of their ability in difficult times and capitalise when there is optimism.

That being said, any top tier sports team should be expected to grow week on week, month on month, however our insights have determined that club shouldn’t just accept that average growth can’t be improved. As an example, Sale Sharks saw a 0.45% growth in their Twitter followers Feb- March, which equated to approximately 200 followers. Whilst this is still a very positive uplift, had the club hit the benchmark for this period of 0.98%, they could have been looking at an additional 240 followers, which is potentially 240 more individuals to retain as fans and target commercially. In stadium terms, that’s 2% of the AJ Bell Stadium. 

So what can rugby clubs do to improve their Twitter growth?

Our platform and team specialises in analysing brand’s entire digital activity to help identify opportunities, threats and return-on-investment.

It’s been an exciting twelve months for Rugby League in England with the national team reaching the final of the Rugby League World Cup in December and the Super League season as always providing thrilling entertainment. The Super League is the UK’s top Rugby League competition, and since being founded in 1996 has been the pinnacle of the sport in the northern hemisphere. The league attracts huge support with the overall matchday attendance for the 2016-17 season exceeding 1.1 million.

This avid fan base are constantly interested in team news both on and off the pitch and thus the birth of social media has been vitally important for the Super League clubs as a method of creating more personal relationships with the fans which results in loyalty and for clubs, can also contribute to commercial benefits. This has prompted our analysts to take a look at how Super League clubs are using Instagram, which is both newer than rivals but also others a more visual service when compared with the linguistic nature of a blog sharing site such as Twitter.

When properly realised, Instagram offers Super League clubs certain opportunities that are more difficult to achieve on other platforms.. Primarily, Instagram is a smartphone app, which harnesses the emotive powers of videos and pictures to connect with the user whilst they are on the go or even at the matches themselves. For an Instagram account to work, a team needs to be authentic, consistent and engaging as well as being easily digestible. 

Who has the most followers on Instagram?

Leeds Rhinos are the most successful team in Super League with eight titles and therefore one would expect them to place highly in this table, whilst Catalan Dragons, the newest team in the division sit fifth in the ranking, a much higher position than they are on the Twitter (12th) & Facebook tables (8th). Perhaps most interesting is the lowly position of St Helens, in spite of being a historic Super League club who are also performing very well this season.

What did Leeds do well?

Leeds’ command of Instagram has been excellent over the last 12 months with daily posts ensuring consistency, and consequently relevancy. The posts are also authentic, with the behind the scenes footage allowing fans to see the inner workings of the club such as how the team prepares for games and how they behave off the field. This authentic content allows for the curtain of TV coverage to be removed, and creates an element of transparency. Moreover, posting pre-match content on Instagram allows for the fans in the stadium to see what the players are doing who may only be a few hundred feet away. This creates a cohesive mini-society within the stadium on match. Finally the content is also extremely current and engaging, such as wishing fans a ‘Happy Star Wars Day’ on May 4th or video which filmed a Fornite session that some of the players had taken part in. Fornite is a big part of the cultural zeitgeist at the moment and many of the club’s followers would have been playing the game as well.

As inconsequential as these type of posts may appear they are huge in creating a connection between the fans who are playing the same game at home and the players. Bonus points on the account’s humorous criticism of the players’ ability in the game, as it’s not often competitive professional athletes are bad at a game.

How are Catalans using Instagram to beat the language barrier?

Like Leeds, Catalan Dragons have also successfully used Instagram to their advantage, albeit for a very different purpose and as of June sat higher than league leaders St Helen’s. Whilst the Dragons sit bottom of the Twitter charts this is more than likely due to the language barrier. Twitter is a platform built for quotes or thoughts and therefore this is more difficult to do when your team is based in a foreign country and must cater for the majority of their fans who are French whilst as Instagram is first and foremost an image sharing site. Therefore Catalans have sought to reach foreign fans through the use of their Instagram account which allows them  to transcend the language barrier.

Their account expresses many factors about the club, not only what happens on the field but also how their players behave off it and what the club’s ethos is. The club’s content includes Catalan have engaged their fan base through easily understandable posts such as post match dressing room coverage which allows fans a glimpse behind the curtain, whilst posts of the players giving blood brings Catalan’s social agenda into the public sphere as well. Moreover, the great success of Catalan’s Rugby League Armchair team is also a constant fixture on the Instagram page, which celebrates success but also shows that there is more to the club than just the men’s Super League team and creates a more dynamic image for the brand.

It may seem fairly basic, but fans want to support a club that has a personality and a social conscience as it helps them during more troublesome times. A fan’s loyalty stems from more than just the results on a pitch, and all sports teams should work towards Barcelona’s sentiment of being ‘more than a club’. Building a relationship with fans was traditional based on the field whereas now clubs have been gifted the chance to dedicate time to building loyalty and sentiment away from the stadium as well.

So what can rugby clubs do to improve their Instagram followers?

Our platform and team specialises in analysing brand’s entire digital activity to help identify opportunities, threats and return-on-investment.

La Liga has a number of strings to its bow with some of the most passionate fans on the planet, two of the world’s biggest clubs and perhaps the greatest duo in history. Consequently, La Liga sees a huge number of fans follow their clubs’ official Twitter accounts, eagerly consuming any news about their favourite players or upcoming matches. With such an enthralling league you would expect to see this reflected in a fervent Twitter fan-base that is constantly growing and immersing themselves in their club’s social media.

Therefore fiacuity’s analysts have studied La Liga’s growth across Twitter, between January 1st & June 1st to discover exactly who grew as expected in the first half of the year and who saw above-average growth, which for La Liga was 1.73%. However, before we get onto the fascinating results it is worth bearing in mind that the makeup of La Liga’s overall followers is starkly different to the EPL. Real Madrid & Barcelona for example make up 89.99% of the overall followers of La Liga clubs with their closest rival Atletico Madrid having 3.89%. Comparably, Man United & Arsenal make up just 43% of all Twitter followers in the EPL, despite having the most followers. Moreover, as you will discover this average benchmark is influenced by a certain anomaly that has impacted the league’s, and more importantly certain clubs growth rate massively..

What does La Liga’s Growth Rate look like?

As you can see between January & February there was a huge spike in follows for La Liga clubs, which boosted the overall growth rate of the league to 4.76%. It’s not uncommon to see a spike in January, due to a proliferation of matches or transfers being announced and this is reflected throughout Europe. However, 4.76% is the highest growth rate for a single month across all of Europe’s top 4 leagues, as well as Portugal & France, and there is a very good reason for this.

On January 25th, Villarreal, Leganes & Levante all announced that they had agreed a deal for three Saudi Arabian internationals who would be heading to Russia for the World Cup: Fahad al-Mulwallad, Salem al-Dawsari & Yahya al-Shehri. Six others arrived in La Liga as well, but it’s these signing which had the biggest influence on La Liga’s growth rate that month, with Villarreal posting a growth rate of 27.60%, Leganes was 9.91% and Levante 24.60%.

The table above gives a full breakdown of the clubs during this period and categorical shows that the acquisition of Middle Eastern players had a huge impact on the league’s following. This course of action was received negatively in some quarters, as a cynical attempt by La Liga to expand their influence into a previously untapped market (the contracts and salaries were paid for by Saudi Arabia’s General Sports Authority). Whilst these loan moves didn’t particularly work-out with the only appearance being a ten minute cameo by Fahad Al Muwallad playing in La Liga, it’s clear that they had the desired effect on the club’s social following. Levante took full advantage of this by promoting the player on Twitter and then expressing their delight at the huge effect it had had on their follower count.

The tweet received thousands of engagement, however it did also provoke debate on the thread with arguments arising between fans, some of whom argued the club were more interested in signing players for commercial potential rather than their ability. 

How does this affect La Liga’s Growth Rate?

The only issue with these transfers and spikes, is that they inflate the club’s overall yearly growth rate and based on the January-June period, appear to be the exceptions rather than the rule. This results in some clubs appearing to have better results than they may actually have in terms of ‘consistent growth’. Villarreal increased their rate to 27.60% after signing Salem al-Dawsari however, they then saw negative growth from March to June. The argument should be made, that ‘growth is growth’ Villarreal have more followers than in 2017, but it should be argued it skewers the overall league benchmark for other teams and as a result, in this case it has led to only six teams achieving above benchmark results in La Liga, in spite of many of them being more consistent than the clubs who signed Saudi players.

Arguably one could dispute the long term success of the ‘Saudi Deal’, with overall follower count on Villarreal’s Arabic account already decreasing from 43k in February to 35k by June. That being said some of these clubs prefer a short term approach to their growth and it’s indisputable that it has worked in acquiring new followers, however a more prudent approach may be to develop and gain fans in a more organic manner as this could result in more sustainable fan loyalty.

So what can football clubs do to improve their Twitter growth?

Our platform and team specialises in analysing brand’s entire digital activity to help identify opportunities, threats and return-on-investment.

Get in touch with us to find out more about how fiacuity can be used to provide strategic recommendations to actively improve your growth rates as well as learn from what competitors are doing to achieve higher rates and success. Our platform can help you review your entire season’s digital marketing activity (social, email, content, paid advertising) and help you make smarter decisions on where to allocate more time and investment.

The English Premier League is the pinnacle of European league football, with the highest attendances, astounding transfer fees, revered managers such as Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho as well as TV deals which net the EPL nearly €2bn more than any other European league. This has given the clubs in the league the opportunity to expand their profile and therefore one would expect this to be reflected in a growth in their followers on social media and in this case Twitter. social media growth.

Therefore the analyst team here at fiacuity, decided to do a little digging and take a look at the growth for these hugely lucrative clubs on Twitter and determine who was seeing exceptional growth rates versus those who below the league benchmark. Understandably, growth rates aren’t the only metric for measuring the success of a club’s social media as engagement is also a key method of assessing success. However, audience numbers and growth reveal an interesting story about a brand’s ‘reach’ which can play a pivotal role in galvanising content in sponsorship.

Who has seen the best Twitter Growth over the last 6 months?

As you can see the growth rate for the Premier League in 2018 so far has been 1.74%, the highest of Europe’s top four leagues, with nine clubs achieving growth which was above this benchmark:

The Top 4 in the league this season all performed above benchmark, suggesting that positive league performance correlates to strong growth, whilst Arsenal & Chelsea fell short. However, it’s worth noting that all four of these clubs were also incredibly inventive with the Twitter strategy this year with content ranging from updates on Tottenham’s stadium to City’s moving piece charting Gabriel Jesus’ journey from struggle to the World Cup. Success can breed growth, but it’s imperative that clubs also take advantage of it.

Which club has maintained consistently great growth?

Clubs managing to sustain above league benchmark growth continuously is a telltale sign of an excellent social strategy, however it is difficult to achieve. Growth consistency, is challenge for a club and our analysts used Everton as an example of this. The club signed striker Cenk Tosun in January and produced some reactive, high quality content to announce this which led to their growth rate jumping to 5.63%. 

Clearly this was well above the monthly benchmark for January of 2.66%, however this was a short term spike, rather than a long term increase and the following month saw a drop to 1.33%.  Arguably, a new signing energises unknown fans and can create short term results but organic growth is more preferable as it is more likely to result in longevity.

Importantly, there is nothing wrong with boosting growth in the short term, however Tottenham’s Twitter strategy has been exemplary in achieving constantly high growth.  It’s currently a very exciting time to be a Spurs fan, with a radical young manager, an entertaining youthful team made up of world class English player such as Harry Kane, establishment in the Champions League as well as new stadium due for completion early in the 2018-19 season. Consequently, the club would expect to naturally see their profile rise, and yet they haven’t taken any chances and have produced excellent content for social media, which has supported their exceptionally consistent growth on Twitter:

Arguably there’s been a few methods by which Spurs have taken advantage of their on the field success to leverage it on Twitter. Primarily fans will follow an account to show their support, get updates on matches and transfer activity as well as interviews. Therefore it’s important to engage with fans regularly to maintain relevancy and ensure the club run account, is the hub for knowledge. Tottenham do this extremely well by tweeting daily and posting ‘Twitter-friendly’ video content, usually between 1-2 minutes’, such as Mauricio’s Minute. Furthermore, even during the World Cup, the  account is still informing their fans about their players’ exploits in Russia which keeps them invested in the postseason, in spite of the natural decline during this period hence the club’s ability to remain above the benchmark between May & June.

Moreover, producing behind the scenes material is a powerful tool in maintaining consistent growth and creating a sense of trust with the supporters, with the stadium updates offering a level of transparency that connects with fans and invites them to join the club on this exciting journey.

Finally, Spurs also have a Twitter account that is infused with personality rather than just being a outlet for data. They do this by posting about matters outside of football, ranging from Mother’s Day well wishes to a ‘Jokes Battle’ between Moussa Dembele and WWE wrestler Finn Balor. Additionally, humour is derived from  posting GIFs to liven up the feed, for example replacing the football in Wanyama’s goal against Liverpool with a fireball. Fans and casual viewers alike, want to be entertain when they are on social media and therefore providing alternative content is an easy way to engage a wider audience and entice more followers.

So how do clubs improve their Twitter growth? How do they beat the benchmark?

The fiacuity platform specialises in analysing a brand’s digital footprint to help identify threats, ROI and opportunities.

Boasting the most watched leagues in world football, it’s never a surprise to see consistent and aggressive growth rates throughout the football season. Televised match coverage, competitions like the UEFA Champions League, record transfer signings and a wealth of sponsorship agreements ensure that clubs of the Big 4 leagues – the English Premier League, the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A and the German Bundesliga – should see constant growth across theis social media channels.

Our analyst team wanted to get a better understanding of what constitutes “great” growth versus just normal, so with this in mind we monitored all of the clubs in these 4 leagues for the last six months (1/1/18 – 1/6/18) and calculated their growth percentages. Of course, we recognise that Twitter followers isn’t the only metric worth tracking and in an increasingly paid advertising focused marketplace, engagement is the real challenge. However, audience size brings with it ‘reach’ which can prove to be a valuable metric to clubs when it comes to incentivising their social media content to sponsors.

Here are a few insights we’ve unearthed from our research:

Who has the most Twitter followers?

There are very few surprises at who tops the Twitter social leagues for each country:

Arguably there’s no huge surprises here with arguably each of the countries most successful teams topping the charts, and Real Madrid & Barcelona being incredibly close. Moreover it could be a shock to see Manchester United so far behind the Spanish top two in terms of worldwide followers. However, it’s worth remembering that this would be expected as they only joined Twitter in 2012 becoming one of the last major European football clubs to have an official Twitter presence, some three years after Barcelona.

How does their growth compare?

As you can see from the table below the English Premier League & Spanish Premier League are the best performing leagues for growth on Twitter.

The EPLs average growth rate over the last six months has been 1.73%, whilst La Liga sits on 1.73%. Conversely the rate is much lower for Serie A (1.34%) and Bundesliga in particular (0.99%).

A continuing trend across the four leagues, is that January consistently appears to be the best performing period of the year for growth whilst most clubs tend to see their rates reduce considerably by the end of the season. This is perhaps no surprise when you consider the weight that Christmas/New Year period holds with often more football on television and the start of the January transfer window. Recent years have seen football clubs look to adopt innovative and creative ways of announcing their players including Manchester United’s Alexis Sanchez “Piano” viral video through to AS Roma’s enormously creative, humorous and subversive player announcement videos.

Key Takeaways for each league

The Premier League on average saw the best average growth over the period, with Liverpool & Tottenham (needs the percentage stats) in particular being the only teams in the league to see above benchmark results month on month.

La Liga saw a huge spike in January 2018, with clubs such as Leganes & Villarreal acquiring Saudi Arabian players on loan. Consequently the average growth for the league between 01/01 and 01/02 was 4.76%, the highest monthly growth for any club in these premier leagues, which just goes to show how tapping into new lucrative marketplaces with transfers and content could help grow club’s international audience overnight.

Bundesliga, conversely saw the single biggest drop of any league during these months, with a negative growth rate of -0.50% between May & June. The most extreme was Koln who saw their followers decrease by over 9k, highlighting perhaps that German fan feeling towards their clubs is far more reactive than other nations – Koln being relegated in this instance.

Serie A bucked the trend from the other leagues by seeing their best growth between March & April.

The Best and Worth Twitter Growth Rates

The fiacuity team has also looked into the overall ‘European Growth Benchmark’ for these leagues which comes out as 1.47%. The below chart illustrates the top & bottom ten sides in terms of growth against this figure:

The Top 10

The Bottom 10

La Liga saw an inflation in their figures as a result of the Saudi deal, whilst Benevento & SPAL have a smaller number of followers but their growth was helped by their promotion to Serie A. Roma’s success in Europe coupled with their powerful and engaging Twitter strategy has heightened their performance with Man City being the most impressive of Europe’s elite clubs, which is no surprise considering their reputation as one of the world’s most effective and innovative clubs on Social Media.

What is more interesting here, is that only 33% of the clubs achieved higher than the average benchmark over the course of the study, with 13 of the 25 being from the Premier League, 7 from Spain, 4 in Italy and Leipzig being Germany’s only representative.

Whilst growth rate is clearly not the only metric for success, it does give a good impression of a club’s reach and how fans react in the moment to their Twitter behaviour.

So what can football clubs do to improve their Twitter growth?

Our platform and team specialises in analysing brand’s entire digital activity to help identify opportunities, threats and return-on-investment.