The analysis of the Serie A clubs’ social media followers that we are proposing today will have a strong impact on the future growth of the Italian football clubs – both from an economic point of view and when it comes to communication. By taking a look at the past season’s Serie A clubs main social network followers, we tried to analyze which areas clubs can improve and what are the weaknesses where they can intervene to correct the direction and obtain the desired results.
If we consider an aggregate share of followers from all the top four social media – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube – the first six positions in the combined ranking are an expression of what are traditionally the most followed and loved clubs in Italy – Juventus, Milan, Inter, with the addition of Roma, Napoli, and Fiorentina.
The top five positions remain the same even when considering the individual social networks. The sixth position is also maintained by Fiorentina when it comes to Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter followers. However, as far as Youtube is concerned, 7th-placed Lazio have more than twice the followers than the Viola (79k vs 31k).
Another consideration is the comparison between the two teams from Genoa: Sampdoria have more followers than Genoa in all four social networks, though the overall difference is less than 100k followers, with the Blucerchiati holding an overall 12th place vs the Grifoni’s 14th. Surely both clubs have much room for improvement to achieve more ambitious goals and give more visibility to the important city they represent.
The situation of Brescia is quite interesting: Despite having in their roster a famous footballer like Mario Balotelli with an active social media presence, as of June 2020 the Rondinelle were the last among the 20 Serie A clubs when it comes to social media following.
In the lower part of this ranking, we can highlight the excellent performance of Sassuolo in the 15th position, just above such glorious and historical clubs like Parma and Verona – who hold the 16th and 17th place respectively.
Juventus’ presence at the top of the ranking is obviously due to the club being the most followed and supported at the national level, but also thanks to the presence of a champion like Cristiano Ronaldo (CR7) – a real brand that has pushed his share of followers to get closer to the Bianconeri as he started his new football adventure in Italy. Currently, Ronaldo indeed is the most followed sportsman on social media.
It should be noted that between the two teams from the city of Milan, who hold the second and third position in the rank, Milan are ahead of Inter despite their results on the pitch have not been very convincing for many years. This will of course help them in the near future as a good level of notoriety can contribute to bolstering the results on the pitch. The presence of Zlatan Ibrahimovic is surely helping to keep some attention on the club.
The growth rate in total followers relative to the second quarter of the year 2020 can be summarized in the above table, shows how Inter made the best progress thanks to their excellent results last season – which turned into greater and improved visibility.
Parma’s second position shows how clubs can exploit the potential offered by the Internet and social networks, as the Gialloblu are above more famous and important teams such as Juventus, Milan, and Rome.
Strangely, a team like Atalanta saw a sharp decline despite their excellent sporting results achieved both in the Serie A and the Champions League.
In conclusion, Serie A could have some very interesting growth margins, given that currently, only the bigger clubs are developing a proper social media strategy for advertising and for exposure towards the international market.
The most important thing, that is often forgotten, is that social networks can generate huge amounts of revenue if well exploited – perhaps through the creation of a department within the club specifically dedicated to new technologies, led by a key figure like the CDO (Chief Digital Officer).
In the charts below, we resumed the number of followers for all the Serie A club technical sponsors and detailed how such sponsors are distributed among the 20 clubs from the past season.
Brand Awareness of Serie A Technical Sponsors
***
Read more from Marco Perrotta on https://naplesfootballcity.wordpress.com