Web viewTable of Contents. Abstract4. Acknowledgments5. Introduction6. Background of the research question6. Literature review7. Growth of social media7. Use of social media

Table of Contents

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Abstract.............................................................................................................................. 4

Acknowledgments........................................................................................................... 5

Introduction...................................................................................................................... 6Background of the research question................................................................................6

Literature review............................................................................................................ 7Growth of social media........................................................................................................... 7Use of social media in the football industry....................................................................8Social media sites......................................................................................................................9

Facebook....................................................................................................................................................9Twitter........................................................................................................................................................9YouTube...................................................................................................................................................10

Social media policies............................................................................................................. 10Mobile/tablet influence on social media........................................................................12Previous studies done.......................................................................................................... 13

Research methodology...............................................................................................14Selecting Continents..............................................................................................................14Selecting Leagues................................................................................................................... 14Selecting social media sites................................................................................................15Measuring the use of social media by each Football team.......................................15

Stage 1- Searching for presence....................................................................................................15Stage 2- Measuring presence.........................................................................................................16Stage 3- Cross Chanel marketing (official site)......................................................................16Challenges faced...................................................................................................................................16

Results.............................................................................................................................. 17Stage 1 results......................................................................................................................... 17Problems that accrued......................................................................................................... 17

Premier league......................................................................................................................................17Bundesliga..............................................................................................................................................18Serie A.......................................................................................................................................................19La Liga......................................................................................................................................................20A-League..................................................................................................................................................20MLS............................................................................................................................................................21

Stage 1 analysis....................................................................................................................... 22Premier league......................................................................................................................................22Bundesliga..............................................................................................................................................22Serie A.......................................................................................................................................................22La Liga......................................................................................................................................................22A-League..................................................................................................................................................22MLS............................................................................................................................................................23

Results summary.................................................................................................................... 23Limitations of stage 1............................................................................................................23Stage 2 results......................................................................................................................... 23Facebook results.................................................................................................................... 24

Premier league......................................................................................................................................24Bundesliga..............................................................................................................................................25Serie A.......................................................................................................................................................26La Liga......................................................................................................................................................27A-League..................................................................................................................................................28MLS............................................................................................................................................................28

Facebook results analysed..................................................................................................30Total likes................................................................................................................................................30

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How many people are talking about it.......................................................................................31Post per week........................................................................................................................................31Up and coming Leagues....................................................................................................................32Total likes................................................................................................................................................32How many people talking about it?.............................................................................................33Posts in the last week........................................................................................................................33

City’s in which they are most popular.............................................................................33Premier league......................................................................................................................................34Bundesliga..............................................................................................................................................34Serie A.......................................................................................................................................................34MLS and A-league................................................................................................................................35

Twitter results........................................................................................................................ 35Premier league......................................................................................................................................35Bundesliga..............................................................................................................................................36Serie A.......................................................................................................................................................36La Liga......................................................................................................................................................37MLS............................................................................................................................................................38A-League..................................................................................................................................................39

Twitter analysis...................................................................................................................... 39Number of followers..........................................................................................................................40Number of tweets................................................................................................................................41

YouTube results...................................................................................................................... 42Premier league......................................................................................................................................42Bundesliga..............................................................................................................................................43Serie A.......................................................................................................................................................43La Liga......................................................................................................................................................44A-League..................................................................................................................................................45MLS............................................................................................................................................................46

YouTube Analysis................................................................................................................... 47How many videos do they post per week?...............................................................................49

Stage 3 Results........................................................................................................................ 50Premier league......................................................................................................................................51Bundesliga..............................................................................................................................................52Serie A.......................................................................................................................................................52La Liga......................................................................................................................................................53MLS............................................................................................................................................................54A-League..................................................................................................................................................55

Evaluation of results, implications and future studies.....................................57Evaluation of results and implications...........................................................................57Further studies....................................................................................................................... 59Reflection on project.............................................................................................................60

References....................................................................................................................... 62

Abstract

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Football clubs across the globe are realising that the use of social media is the future in terms of improving and expanding their business, whether this be for marketing purposes or as a medium for directly communicating with their fans. Although this study found that the majority of teams researched have a social network presence, there was a marked difference in how effectively social media was used between the top leagues and the up and coming leagues. In the use of social media my study demonstrates how clubs in the top leagues blew the others out of the water when it came to the number of likes, followers and views they received via social media. The results also showed that if a team has a global reputation and is therefore widely known then they have a distinct advantage and are more likely to gain more likes and followers. However the surprising thing is that such well known world-wide clubs don’t always use this commercial potential as effectively as they might and that lesser known teams often use social media in a more effective way in order to please their fan base.

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to family and friends that supported me throughout my three years at university without you guys I wouldn’t have made it this far.

I would also like to thank Dr Joanne Kuzma for her guidance and support throughout my Computing Project.

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Introduction

The aim of this study is to find out the use of social media in the football industry. “Social media such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others have been growing at a tremendous rate and the adoption rate of such media has been skyrocketing which, in turn, has delivered astronomical numbers of users in less than 10 years”. Noor Al-Deen et al,. (2012). This is all well and good but what have football clubs done to adapt to this new culture? This study aims is to find out if football teams are using these social sites and further to see how well and effectively they are utilising it to communicate with their fan base around the world.

The study provides an in depth look of how each team in six different leagues use social media. There are two parts to the study; firstly it is to look into every team and find out if they use social media and then how well they do. The second part is to analysis the results of each team then provide an overall picture of the various leagues in order that I can ascertain in my conclusion as to which league interacts with their fans the best.

After reading much of the available literature it is clear that social media is the future, it is what every business needs to embrace, including football teams. The literature review gives an insight into each of the social sites and into the growth and development of social media in the last ten years and its impact on the football industry.

Conducting a study to do with social media in football is new and there hasn’t been one carried out before. Therefore my findings can be the first to give an insight of what football teams are doing to adjust to this new era and the advent of social media.

Background of the research question

Social media has become a boom industry when it comes to business. It is increasingly used as a marketing tool to spread the word about their business across the world and to promote new products to clients in other countries.This study looks specifically into football teams across the world to understand what the approach to social media usage is and what can be developed from it. The aims of the study are to understand the questions below:

1. Are football teams around the world using social media?2. If so how well and effectively do they use social media?3. How successful are they at using the sites?4. Do they use cross channel marketing to promote their social media pages on

their official website?

The findings of the study should indicate how well football teams are using social media to interact with their fans. This data will then help gain an understanding of

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what league uses it best and what the other leagues can do to improve their communication with their fans.

Literature review

The literature review will give an insight on the major aspects of social media and how this links to the study on the football industry. The Lit review consists of the growth of social media, use of social media in the football industry, background on each social sites that this study is looking at and how the use of the mobile/tablet has affected social sites together with prior studies done on social media.

Growth of social mediaBusiness didn’t take to social media as quickly as everyone expected. Many companies that had started using social media didn’t understand why, as they didn’t understand how to determine the return on investment. Bodnar et al. (2012) But in the past few years social media has become a phenomenon being used by millions around the world. This is why many companies are now increasingly embracing it, as it is a useful tool to reach out to consumers. They use it to create a buzz about their company and to promote new products/services that are coming out. Scott (2013)

Social media is best defined in the context of previous industrial media paradigm. Traditional media such as television and radio are one way. Then you have static broadcast media such as magazines. With these types of media if you disagree with something you read or see such as an advert of a product, you cannot send the editorial staff instant feedback. Zarrella (2010)

But with the emergence of Internet-based social media it is now possible for one person to communicate with hundreds or even thousands of other people about products and the companies that provide them. Thus, the impact of consumer-to-consumer communications has been greatly magnified in the marketplace. Mangold et al. (2009).

The major benefit of social media is the convenience of it, social media tools such as YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are all free and don’t require special software. Wankel et al., (2010)As a result, more than 90% of the adult population are using social media. No businesses can ignore it anymore as Social media offers opportunities to a business to connect and build long lasting relationships. (Taprial et al, 2012) This is ideal for a football club as many fans have already a long lasting relationship with the club.

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Social media used to be used primarily by a youth market. The millennium generation has enjoyed Facebook, MySpace and YouTube for a number of years now. It is a natural and easy way for them to communicate. Topper (2009) but nowadays the social media seen is a lot different. Companies such as Mercedes now even use it as a sales pitch in car sales, by having apps and access to social media on the go. The growth in social media has grown so much that even the Vatican has launched is own @pontifex twitter account, with the aim to communicate with more than one billion Catholics around the world. Mehta (2013)

If a business can learn how to influence the crowd effectively, then it can create a significant and defensible market position based on soiled social acceptance Evans (2012) By optimizing your social media marketing efforts, involving everything from making sure that your profiles have the right keywords, (band name or product name etc) to ensuring the content you place into the communities is not only findable but also relevant to what members are talking about. Evans (2010)

Use of social media in the football industry

The most significant opportunity for football enterprises presented by new media is its ability to develop deeper relationships with consumers. Chadwick et al., (2010) “Football clubs are no longer content to sit back and take their fans for granted in a global digital age that allows teams in other countries to become both sporting and commercial rivals”. BBC News (2013

Using social media has enabled football clubs to have a two-way relationship with its fans as Peate, 2012) says Facebook and Twitter give fans a direct link to the club in between match days. They allow clubs the chance to reward fans for their loyalty with exclusive offers and competitions as well as news and updates direct from the stadium and training ground. Subsequently, engaged fans will pass on information and offers, visit the club website more often” Walsh (2013)

When leveraged properly, social media can allow sports/football organisations to build fan participation and interaction, drive traffic to their official website and even develop sponsor programs to increase revenue. Masteralexis, (2012)

Media is one of the largest sources of revenue for team organizations, soccer especially. Broadcasting, distribution, publication, and licensing rights sell for a pretty penny all over the world. An example is NBC Universal’s new 3-year $250 million TV rights deal with the Barclay’s Premier League. TV is still the number one media for sports, but its getting caught up rapidly. The average sports fan now spends 1-2.5 hours a week following their teams via social media. (Business of

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Soccer, 2013) This means that football clubs around the world must now take to social media to interact with their fans.

Social media sites

Facebook

Why is Facebook so powerful for businesses? Well Facebook has a vast number of customers with an estimated billion users, all connected in one way or another. Diving into this swimming pool of connectivity means that your fans and potential fans can engage with the team through photos, videos, polls and many more. Ray (2013)

Because of this Facebook is ideal for football teams, the reason being is Facebook uses the same networking concepts used prior to the social media revolution, where a businesses reputation is spread by word of mouth from one friend to another. Facebook takes it to a new step by instead of the trickledown effect its more like a flood by which a friend could post about his team and what a great time he had and anyone following them would see it. GadChick (2011) This is where a saying by Goldforb (2013) comes in; he says, “Facebook is like a newspaper made by your friends! It’s a live newspaper, and your friends and favourite brands are the editors of this newspaper”. This is how football has benefited from Facebook.Facebook has also improved fan pages-pages controlled by a business, organization or well-known individual. The owner of the fan page can comment, like other fan pages, and interact just like a normal user of Facebook. This is the way teams stay connected with their fans. Smith (2011)

Twitter

Twitter is huge media phenomenon, which has become increasingly popular if not essential in the world of media, politics and personal interaction. It’s the hangout of famous faces, bigwig politicians etc. It’s the second largest social network after Facebook. Your business has the opportunity to simultaneously brand itself all in 140 characters or less. Dugan (2013)One thing that you can’t ignore is the growth and popularity of Twitter. Whilst not quite as big as Facebook, it has influential and powerful users. Twitter users find it infinitely more useful than other forms of communication. A study by eMarketer in March 2012 predicts twitter will grow at a faster rate than Facebook over the next couple of years. Prodromou (2013) This means that each club must have or be willing to have a twitter account.Twitter is emerging as a key business channel, letting companies engage with customers, partners and other constituents in a direct way that’s both personal and

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public something that no other medium allows. O’Reilly (2012) It is probably the most important marketing leveller since email. Twitter gives everyone the chance to have an equal voice. Granted, big brands can pay to market their twitter handles externally but none of this prevents small businesses/clubs from reaching the same twitter status as a top-selling brand. Thomases (2010) This is good for little clubs as it means that they can take on the huge teams without the finical pressure.Twitter acts as your digital billboard, a branded outpost for company news and press releases. But it can also act as your customer support channel, answering questions and complaints within minutes. Dugan (2013)

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website that began in 2005, and has gained massive popularity ever since. It gets over 2 billion views per day which makes it the second highest search engine behind Google. WireWalkersVA (n.d.) “People are marching in droves to the web to watch videos. Everyday 65,000 new videos are uploaded to YouTube's site, and every day the world's people tune into 100 million of these videos”. Ying (2007)Ever since Google’s purchase of YouTube in 2006 it has given it’s videos increasing prominent exposure in its own search results. This has then made videos an indispensable method of increasing a business/clubs ranking in a Google search. WireWalkersVA (n.d.) According to Pritchard et, al. (2014) YouTube represents a technology that sport organisations must use to create a presence and use it effectively. The way that an organisation can utilise YouTube is through the creation of specific channels to showcase their brand. What the authors are saying is that the channel will allow the team to interact and engage with their ordinance via videos in which they can watch anytime. Pritchard et, al. (2014) then goes onto say, To develop a channel properly a sports organisation must consider that the content being shard is adding value to the community, it must be relevant to the audience and viewers need to be given a reason to view and want to share the video. This is what a club needs so they can’t put up random footage it must be useful as the idea for the club is to make revenue from using the video as advertising.

Social media policiesA social media policy is a must have document that outlines what employees, members or an organisation can and can’t publish online particularly on social networks. Hilse (2013) What do people mean by a social media policy? It’s a document, which requires input from marketing, legal, HR and business operations. The document is typically linked to existing documents such as privacy, sexual harassment and ethics policy. Smith and Wollan et al. (2011)

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Scott (2009) says the in a study done it was reported that 40 per cent of organisations blocked access to social networking sites and prohibited their use. But in todays mobile enabled world, it is naïve of any organisation to believe it can actually block the use within its walls. And as Zimmerman (2013) says most policies actually address the use of social media in work time, an example would be employees are not allowed to use personal accounts on company time, but some trained employees maybe allowed to post customer support replies on behalf of the company where as others are responsible for new information.

The reason why companies should have a social policy is that it could harm the company. Hilse (2013) agrees as he states Only a few years ago it was very hard for an average person to cause harm to an organisations reputation, as content back then was published by journalists who had a reputation. Since the rise of social networks it has given companies a distinct problem, What if a member on their own account slated their employers? This could potentially go global and the organisation could take a hit, as everyone would know what it is like to work for him or her. This is why a clear policy about social media use is important for any company. In it you can hold individuals responsible for what they write, Zimmerman (2013) thus would make employees think about what they are about to write.It has happened in sport where players or members of one team have lashed out online, an example for that is after super bowl XLIV where an Indianapolis PR “professional” sent out a tweet about New Orleans (who they lost to), uproar that followed almost cost her, her job. She did apologise but the backlash from it reinforced a lot of companies why they need a social media policy after all. Falls, et al.(2012)Even in football the FA have a media policy in which if a player or staff are obliged to abide by. The FA (2013) has the following types of media comments that could be in breach of FA Rule E3: Comments, which are improper, which bring the game into disrepute, which are threatening, abusive, indecent or insulting. Comments about match officials, which imply bias, attack the officials’ integrity or which are personally offensive in nature. If any of these rules are broken then there will be a financial penalty or fine issued after a hearing process.

Mobile/tablet influence on social media

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Users engaging with social networks on mobile devices are not simply changing the amount of screen size they have to work with. Instead, they are drastically changing the potential length of time they will spend on the network, the location they will be using it from. Gee (2013)Mobile phone technology is advancing at breakneck speeds; it is truly social media in a box that includes nearly every social media tool on one device. With smartphones letting you do almost anything i.e. take photos, videos, listen to music. It brings social media into play as you can then; from that one device upload anything to your social site to allow you to show others what you want. Safko (2012). Smartphones and mobile social media are affecting our lives immensely, especially in terms of communication and convenience of access to information. There are 800 million people globally who have problems going anywhere without there mobile. Research done by a major mobile analyst firm in the US in may 2012 have found that 73 per cent have accessed social networks via their mobile devices. Maya (2013)

The reality is that because people are always only an arm length away from their phones they are essentially connected with their social networks 24/7. This reality means that users are always connected and as a result people tend to share content on social networks more often. From a marketers perspective the ability for the consumer to interact with the social network side quickly and easily form mobile devices can be used as a powerful strategy for staying in touch with them and allow constant updates about their new products and can hopefully get it to go viral Barker (2011)For the first time in January 2013, over half of all internet-using consumers accessed the internet from a smartphone according to Mintel’s Digital Trends Spring – UK, March 2013 report. Approximately half this proportion – 27% – accessed the internet from a tablet device. This was a 10 percentage gain over September 2012’s figure. The proportion of consumers accessing the internet from a tablet device will likely outstrip the proportion doing so from a computer at work, university or college by the end of 2013, given increasing tablet ownership patterns. Gee (2013)

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Previous studies done

A search was done using academic resources available online via Google scholar and ACM digital library and other sources for the terms ‘football’, ‘social media’ and “soccer”. The searches did not turn up any studies on this topic mainly because the use of social media and recruiting is still so new, this was an expected result as football clubs have only just in the last 5 or so years taken to social media and started using it correctly. Therefore, this current computing project is one of the first of its kind in researching a new topic and contributing to the body of literature on this topic.

Some other studies of other industries such as universities use of social media were found;

Kuzma and Wright (2012) conducted a study looking at universities across the globe and how the used social media for recruiting and marketing. Their results showed that certain geographical locations use social media more than others. Also that it is important that HEIs integrate the use of social media into their marketing programs in order to reach their intended target.

Greenwood (2012) conducted a study on the presence of social media on university websites and noticed that there was a networking gap, which gave universities a unique opportunity to further connect with their target market. In Greenwood's results the most frequent social media sites found were Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and noticed that 92% of colleges in America were using social media in conjunction with their official web sites.

The above studies show that it is important for Football clubs to have integration with social media as it gives them a chance to connect and market to a wider range of people and does show that the new generation of people are using social media more and more.

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Research methodology As mentioned above the aim of the study is to investigate how football teams across the world use social media to communicate with their fans.

Selecting ContinentsWhen doing a study on Football there are two continents that stand out, Europe and South America as they love football and primarily football is there first choice of sport. Europe was chosen as it has the best leagues in the world so it was vital I used those to conduct my research. When doing a little research on South America It was had to find teams on social sites as they use their own versions so the investigation wouldn’t produce a fair result. Due to that it was decided to include the up and coming leagues, which also use global media, These leagues are based in North America and Australasia

Selecting LeaguesUpon researching the continents it was decided that six leagues would be used to conduct this study.

Europe:• Premier league• Bundesliga• Serie A• La Liga

The reasons for choosing these leagues are that they are the top four leagues in the world, when it comes to football. Each league has a high proportion of globally recognised teams, a fact that will help with the collection of data.

USA:• MLS

The MLS has been around for quite a few years but it is still seen as a newcomer. It is gaining more reputation each year from signing big named players who are close to retirement meaning that it is gaining a wider audience.

Australia• A-league

The A-league is the baby league, it is the newest but yet it to is also growing in reputation by signing big named players thus making the A-league a good candidate for the research.

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The following leagues the MLS and the A-league have two things in common, not only are they the newcomers but that football isn’t the primary or national sport, so it will be interesting to see how well the stake up to the other leagues.

Selecting social media sites.There are so many social media sites out there so it was fundamental that the three social media networks chosen were right for this study, the three, which are best known, are listed below.

• Facebook• Twitter• YouTube

It was decided that Facebook would be one of the sites used, as it is the biggest global social media network and that it has over 1 billion active users, so football teams would want to make sure they are part of it. The second site used will be Twitter, as it is also globally used and is in the top 3 biggest social sites out there with around 650 million active users. The final social media site chosen is YouTube and the reason for this is that even though some sources don’t consider it a social site, for the purpose of this study it can be regarded as such with football being a visual sport it is vital that they show there fans game highlights, interviews etc. So this is the reason why YouTube is included.

Measuring the use of social media by each Football team

They way this study will be conducted is in three different stages.

Stage 1- Searching for presence

Without stage 1 there would be no study. The purpose of this stage is to see whether each team has a presence on the three social media sites. This data will be vital for the second stage.

• Facebook: to gather results a search of each football team was conducted, e.g. 'Nottingham Forrest', recording an x in the table if present and blank if not.

• Twitter: a search for each football team was done, recording an x if there and left blank if not.

• YouTube: To do this search it had to be done under the browse channel function to allow me to find the correct results. The same as before an x if present and left blank if not.

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Stage 2- Measuring presence

This stage uses the research collected in stage one and expanded upon. This means that if the team had a present on that site then it was explored in more detail to give an understanding of how social media is used in the football industry.

• Facebook: Each football team that had a presence was re-visited recording the number of likes their page had, how many people were talking about it, recording how often they post over a week and finally what city were they most popular in.

• Twitter: The same was done for twitter by re-visiting every team that has a presence on this site. The number of followers was recorded as well as the number of tweets each team has tweeted since being on that site.

• YouTube: If the football team had a presence on this site then it would be revisited; the data collected would be, the number of subscribers each channel had as well as how many views they were getting and finally how many weekly videos were posted.

Stage 3- Cross Chanel marketing (official site)

This stage consisted of going onto each of their official website and to see if they promoted their presence on social media. The data was collected in a table that marked yes if they promoted Facebook, Twitter or YouTube on their site. The reason for this research is to see how well each club uses cross channel to communicate with their fans as nowadays football fans will manly use social sites for updates rather than the official website.

Challenges faced

The problem that one can encounter is in finding different pages for each team, Take for example “Manchester UTD” they have an official Facebook site but also they have a fan version. In this instance I will choose the official site.Another problem could be that they don’t have a YouTube channel but that YouTube has an automated one in this case I will ignore this as it is a bot site and would give unfair results.

Finally another challenge faced would be incorrect spelling of the team. This is prominent in a search for foreign teams. If for example you were searching for “Celta Vigo”, then to gain the correct data i.e. their official pages then their full name “Real Club Celta de Vigo” would have to be used otherwise it would lead to unfair results.

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Results

Stage 1 resultsThe results for stage one are shown in the tables below. If a team had a page on that site then the box was given an X if it didn’t then it was left blank. The first column shows whether a Facebook presence was found, the second shows their Twitter presence and finally the third column shows if there was a YouTube Presence.

In this stage, it was expected that majority of clubs would have a presence on all three social sites. This stage is just a stepping-stone for stage 2.

Problems that accrued

If the teams name wasn’t right/in full some sites didn’t give the right results. So this lead to some results being misinterpreted and thus had to spend more time going over each team looking for their official social sites. Another problem was that some YouTube channels didn’t have the verified tick but said in the description that they were the official channels. But in other cases if they had the tick it didn’t say if it was the official channel.

Premier leagueTable 1 - Premier league stage 1 results

Team Facebook Twitter YouTube

Arsenal X X

Aston Villa X X X

Cardiff City X X X

Chelsea X X X

Crystal Palace X X X

Everton X X X

Fulham X X X

Hull City X X X

Liverpool X X X

Manchester City X X X

Manchester United X X

Newcastle United X X X

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Norwich City X X X

Southampton X X X

Stoke City X X X

Sunderland X X

Swansea City X X X

Tottenham Hotspur X X X

West Bromwich Albion X X X

West Ham United X X X

Total 20 20 17

Bundesliga Table 2 - Bundesliga stage 1 results


Bayer Leverkusen X X X

Bayern Munich X X X

Borussia Dortmund X X X

Borussia Monchengladbach

X X X

Eintracht Frankfurt X X X

FC Augsburg X X X

Hamburg SV X X X

Hannover 96 X X X

Hertha Berlin X X X

Mainz 05 X X X

Nurnberg X X X

SC Freiburg X X X

Schalke 04 X X X

TSG Hoffenheim X X X

TSV Eintracht Braunschweig

X X

Vfb Stuttgart X X X

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Vfl Wolfsburg X X X

Werder Bremen X X X

Total 18 18 17

Serie ATable 3 - Serie A stage 1 results


AC Milan X X X

Atalanta X X X

Bologna X X X

Cagliari X X X

Catania X

Chievo X X X

Fiorentina X X X

Genoa X X

Inter Milan X X X

Juventus X X X

Lazio X X X

Livorno

Napoli X X X

Parma X X X

Roma X X X

Sampdoria X X X

Sassuolo X X X

Torino X X X

Udinese X X X

Verona X X X

Total 18 19 17

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La LigaTable 4 – La Liga stage 1 results


UD Almería X X X

Athletic Bilbao X X X

Atletico Madrid X X X

Barcelona X X X

Celta Vigo X X X

Elche X X X

Espanyol X X X

Getafe X X

Granada X X X

Levante X X X

Malaga X X X

Osasuna X X X

Rayo Vallecano X X

Real Betis X X X

Real Madrid X X X

Real Sociedad X X X

Real Valladolid X X X

Sevilla X X X

Valencia X X X

Villarreal X X X

Total 18 20 20

A-LeagueTable 5 – A-League stage 1 results


Adelaide United X X X

Brisbane Roar X X X

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Central Coast Mariners X X X

Melbourne Heart X X X

Melbourne Victory X X X

Newcastle Jets X X X

Perth Glory X X X

Sydney FC X X X

Wellington Phoenix X X X

Western Sydney Wanderers

X X X

Total 10 10 10

MLSTable 6 – MLS stage 1 results


Chicago Fire X X X

Chivas USA X X X

Colorado Rapids X X X

Columbus Crew X X X

DC United X X X

FC Dallas X X X

Houston dynamo X X X

Sporting Kansas City X X X

LA Galaxy X X X

Montreal Impact X X X

New England Revolution X X X

New York Red Bulls X X X

Philadelphia Union X X X

Portland Timbers X X X

Real Salt Lake X X X

San Jose Earthquakes X X X

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Seattle Sounders FC X X X

Toronto FC X X X

Vancouver Whitecaps X X X

Total 19 19 19

Stage 1 analysis

Premier leagueThe results for Facebook and twitter presence were 100% as every club had a twitter and Facebook page. What was a surprise was that not every club had a YouTube channel. Only 85% of clubs did. And the shock results was that 2 of the biggest clubs in the world didn’t have an official YouTube channel only one made up by the fans.(At the time of taking the results Arsenal didn’t have a YouTube account)

BundesligaThe clubs in the Bundesliga followed the same trend as the premier league with every club having a presence on Facebook and Twitter. There was a surprise though that German clubs had more of a presence than English ones with having 94.4% on YouTube with only one team not having a channel.

Serie A Serie A is the only league to have one of its teams not having a social media presence, because of that they are the only league not to have 100% presence on Twitter. Facebook came in second with 90%, which is a surprise. YouTube on the other had only had an 85% presence. Which is on par with the premier league.

La LigaIt’s a shock that the two media site to have 100% teams presence is Twitter and YouTube even though according to the litruture they aren’t as popular as Facebook. But what’s more unexpected is that Facebook has the least amount of clubs on it with 90% of teams. This is a low presence considering it is one of the best/most popular leagues in the world.

A-LeagueThis was the unexpected result as Facebook had 100% presence; Twitter also had 100%, as did YouTube. This is significantly high considering this is the smallest league in the study and that it isn’t as popular as the others.

MLSShowed a full presence on every site. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all had 100% of clubs active on each site. Considering this league has to compete with the top

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American sports and that it isn’t as well known as the European leagues in this study. It shows how much social media can work for a club which will be found out in stage 2.

Results summaryAs expected majority of clubs have a social media presence. If you look at this from a worldwide point of view, the results from stage 1 show that 99% of teams have a Twitter presence, the only reason it wasn't a 100% is due to one team having no social media presence at all. This is followed by 96.2% of clubs having a Facebook page and finally YouTube has the lowest amount of presence with 93.4%. This wasn’t expected as Facebook is the most popular social media network and yet more teams have a higher presence on Twitter. What was expected was that YouTube would have the lowest presence.

Limitations of stage 1

Stage 1 was all about giving an indication of social media presence by different football clubs. This stage was vital for the result section as it allows for a more in-depth look into their presence on each site. As this stage is all about if they have an account or not.

Stage 2 will be going into more detail, as right now every league has a high presence on social media but with stage 2 we can work out who is using social media more and get a better understanding of how clubs are interacting with their fans and who is doing it better than others.

Stage 2 resultsThe results for stage 2 can be seen in the tables below, this stage has been divided up into individual studies of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Therefore giving a more detailed look into each league and clubs.

For the Facebook results there will be 4 columns showing different data, the first one shows the number of likes the page has from fans, the second one will show how many people are talking about it. The third column will show on average the number of posts the club has made in a week, and then finally the last column will be a bit different and show what city the page is the most popular in, This has been chosen so you can see if the club has a higher presence outside of its own city.

The Twitter study will show the amount of follows that the club has, the next column will show how many tweets the page has tweeted. And finally how many posts per day, the reason for this is twitter is supposed to be a quick update site.

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In the YouTube table the first column will show how many subscribers the channel has, the second column will show how many views their have been, and the last column will show how many weekly videos have been put up to communicate with the fans.

Facebook results

Premier leagueTable 7 – Premier League stage 2 Facebook results

Team Total likes How many people talking about it

Posts in the last week (including match days)

Most popular city

Arsenal 22,392,084 1,069,227 43 Bangkok

Aston Villa 1,776,859 40,379 87 Birmingham

Cardiff City 259,374 19,423 71 Cardiff

Chelsea 25,854,253 1,855,573 47 Bangkok

Crystal Palace 157,770 8,988 26 London

Everton 933,508 44,482 78 Liverpool

Fulham 520,750 16,639 76 London

Hull City 593,035 27,564 42 Cairo

Liverpool 17,052,058 2,188,216 31 Bangkok

Manchester City

10,620,715 536,830 76 Bangkok

Manchester United

44,312,313 2,152,784 69 Bangkok

Newcastle United

1,025,241 32,703 56 Newcastle

Norwich City 270,921 21,274 44 Norwich

Southampton 244,499 25,751 84 Southampton

Stoke City 183,587 9,405 25 Stoke

Sunderland 270,234 22,096 33 Sunderland

Swansea City 507,440 20,428 28 Swansea

Tottenham 4,514,779 109,016 59 Bangkok

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Hotspur

West Bromwich Albion

229,324 14,247 36 Birmingham

West Ham United

658,100 27,405 65 London

Total 132,376,844 8,242,430 1076 N/A

Bundesliga Table 8 – Bundesliga stage 2 Facebook results



Most popular city

Bayer Leverkusen 719,186 20,611 29 Leverkusen

Bayern Munich 13,788,986 902,749 36 Cairo

Borussia Dortmund 7,723,237 393,048 114 Dortmund

Borussia Monchengladbach

566,370 42,859 49 Mönchengladbach

Eintracht Frankfurt 321,180 19,239 31 Frankfurt

FC Augsburg 125,373 12,555 15 Augsburg

Hamburger SV 624,461 52,422 29 Hamburg

Hannover 96 264,305 21,388 25 Hanover

Hertha Berlin 196,339 9,447 52 Berlin

Mainz 05 109,464 13,108 62 Mainz

Nurnberg 252,009 14,631 26 Nuremberg

SC Freiburg 132,644 22,198 12 Freiburg

Schalke 04 2,013,754 102,850 50 Gelsenkirchen

TSG Hoffenheim 112,823 4,676 23 Heidelberg

Eintracht Braunschweig

111,977 13,334 40 Braunschweig

Vfb Stuttgart 381,466 37,917 29 Stuttgart

Vfl Wolfsburg 230,370 7,672 35 Wolfsburg

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Werder Bremen 746,343 36,191 17 Bremen

Total 28,420,287 1,726,895 674 N/A

Serie ATable 9 – Serie A stage 2 Facebook results



Most popular city

AC Milan 20,654,368 240,727 8 Cairo

Atalanta 52,310 6,878 57 Bergamo

Bologna 75,735 4,764 22 Bologna

Cagliari 134,666 10,621 69 Cagliari

Catania N/A N/A N/A N/A

AC Chievo Verona

34,738 2,383 42 Verona

Fiorentina 457,437 65,111 38 Florence

Genoa 112,275 6,129 7 Genova

Inter Milan 3,569,294 103,496 73 Milan

Juventus 11,092,976 781,766 30 Milan

Lazio 246,346 20,241 16 Rome

Livorno N/A N/A N/A N/A

Napoli 2,299,833 152,857 80 Naples

Parma 69,915 14,092 209 Parma

Roma 3,055,041 168,481 62 Rome

Sampdoria 92,225 9,700 80 Genova

Sassuolo 69,603 6,783 21 Sassuolo

Torino 90,425 7,545 28 Turin

Udinese 103,094 4,615 246 Udine

Verona 108,105 6,543 67 Verona

Total 42,318,386 1,612,732 1,155 N/A

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La LigaTable 10 – La Liga stage 2 Facebook results



Most popular city

UD Almería 95,787 18,943 30 Bangkok

Athletic Bilbao 305,019 11,464 34 Bilbao

Atletico Madrid 2,672,045 143,050 22 Madrid

Barcelona 58,872,395 2,051,910 79 Bangkok

Real Club Celta de Vigo

75,225 8,004 30 Vigo

Elche 46,242 5,466 62 Elche

Espanyol 135,954 10,165 51 Barcelona

Getafe N/A N/A N/A N/A

Granada 47,702 4,694 21 Granada

Levante 129,048 2,397 6 Valencia

Málaga Club 497,788 15,878 35 Málaga

Osasuna 18,510 2,677 30 Pamplona,

Rayo Vallecano N/A N/A N/A N/A

Real Betis 154,495 28,640 59 Seville

Real Madrid 55,025,326 2,965,009 40 Mexico City

Real Sociedad 293.708 37,309 54 Mexico City

Real Valladolid 49.509 7,387 21 Valladolid

Sevilla 267.315 53,832 85 Seville

Valencia 1,331,903 57,416 33 Valencia

Villarreal 134.693 13,527 19 Mexico City,

Total 119,408,184 5,437,768 711 N/A

A-LeagueTable 11 – A-League stage 2 Facebook results



Most popular city

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Adelaide United

46,136 5,604 37 Adelaide

Brisbane Roar 63,405 11,220 17 Brisbane

Central Coast Mariners

24,174 2,282 23 Sydney

Melbourne Heart

47,599 4,501 34 Melbourne

Melbourne Victory

116,158 6,690 27 Melbourne

Newcastle Jets 25,982 3,338 18 Newcastle

Perth Glory 39,438 1,076 19 Perth

Sydney FC 105,462 5,756 21 Sydney

Wellington Phoenix

71,154 3,050 27 Wellington


60,138 5,760 28 Sydney

Total 599,646 49,277 251 N/A

MLSTable 12 – MLS stage 2 Facebook results



Most popular city

Chicago Fire 182,286 5,761 52 Chicago

Chivas USA 738,948 21,035 25 Mexico City

Colorado Rapids

70,691 3,598 34 Denver

Columbus Crew 85,766 6,136 37 Columbus

DC United 110,285 4,097 20 Washington

FC Dallas 122,782 7,083 35 Dallas

Houston dynamo

166,231 6,965 24 Houston

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Sporting Kansas City

129,177 14,198 35 Kansas

LA Galaxy 789,679 19,397 33 LA

Montreal Impact

120,145 5,395 33 Montreal

New England Revolution

112,171 4,255 22 Boston

New York Red Bulls

422,774 7,167 15 New York

Philadelphia Union

121,598 1,577 20 Philadelphia

Portland Timbers

162,525 9,458 32 Portland

Real Salt Lake 138,444 8,378 39 Salt Lake City

San Jose Earthquakes

83,741 5,846 22 San Jose

Seattle Sounders FC

380,259 18,919 31 Seattle

Toronto FC 113,426 12,610 45 Toronto

Vancouver Whitecaps

99,467 4,959 31 Vancouver

Total 4,150,395 166,834 585 N/A

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Facebook results analysed

From the results above it is clear that football teams around the globe are using their social media presence on Facebook to actively engage with their fans. Out of 107 teams there are only 4 that do not have a Facebook page. Which in turn answers the first question “Are football teams around the world using social media?” The study will then conduct an analysis, the first one will be comparing the top 4 football leagues and the second will be an evaluation of the two up and coming leagues.

Below is the European table. Which consists of the best 4 football leagues in the world.

Table 13 – Summary of Facebook results for the top 4 leagues

League Total likes How many people talking about it


Premier league 132,376,844 8,242,430 1076La Liga 119,408,184 5,437,768 711Serie A 42,318,386 1,612,732 1,155Bundesliga 28,420,287 1,726,895 674

Total likes

What we can gather from this table is that the Premier league is the most popular with fans on Facebook by having the most likes. This isn’t a shock and there are two reasons why; Football is the main or national sport in England so a lot of people have a team they support and will like their page. The other reason is that it is the most commercial league around and everyone knows what the Premier league is due to the teams that play in it.

In second place is La Liga. Within this league there are two teams everyone knows and that is Barcelona and Real Madrid, both world renowned clubs and if you look in more detail at the results you will notice that just between the two of them they have over 110 million likes.

Serie A has over 40 million Facebook likes which is very low in comparison to the top 2 leagues but it has a similar pattern to the La Liga. The reason being is that AC

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Milan has 20 million likes and Juventus have 11 million. Which is over three quarters of the likes for the league.

And in last place in the table is the Bundesliga with only 28 million this is low, seeing as it is one of the best leagues in the world. The top two teams in this leagues which make up the number of likes are Bayern Munich that has over 13 million and Schalke has over 2 million. The rest of the teams are pretty even with their fan base/likes.

Surprisingly the way the teams line up in the table is exactly the same as the relative popularity of the league. The premiership is by far the most well known league and the results prove it. Where as the Bundesliga at the moment may have the best team in the world but yet it shows that one team cannot make a league popular.

How many people are talking about it

When looking at the results the teams that had the most likes had the most people talking about it. Which in this case with the top leagues is right for the top two. With the premier league having over 8 million, which is a mile ahead of second place La Liga with over 5 million. The surprising result is that even though Serie has over 15 more million likes than the Bundesliga but yet it’s the Bundesliga that is getting talked about more.

Post per week

This result was a surprise as Serie A clubs delivered more posts to their fans than any other league with posting 1,155 in the last week, but looking deeper into the results you will notice that this is because of two teams that give their fans the most, Udinese posted 246 posts which did include a game day but still that is extremely high amount and then the other team Parma posted 209 in the last week. Then you compare it to the rest of the teams who posted between 7 and 80 posts, it shows that these two teams have helped in the amount of posts per week. Closely behind them was the premier league clubs with 1,076; the clubs post a similar amount of posts each week with the most being 87 then the least being 31, which is a good amount for a football team as it shows the fans are getting enough information whether they support a huge team or a lower team.

Behind the Premier league is the La Liga whose teams posted a respectable 711 posts last week, with their clubs ranging from 6 to 85 posts. It is a little disappointing that some of the clubs are posting as little as 6 times a week that’s less than one time a day which is not a satisfactory situation for fans.

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The Bundesliga came below par with only 674 posts; in the league you had the highest, which was Borussia Dortmund who posted 114 posts to SC Freiburg who only interacted with their fans 12 times in the past week.

On average teams in the Premier league were posting 54 times per week, In the Bundesliga their teams posted on average 37 times per week. The La Liga posted on average 40 times per week. And then the Serie A teams gave their fans on average 64 posts per week show that the Serie A is the best at communicating with its fans via Facebook.

Up and coming Leagues

The reason why these two leagues are not being compared to the others is there is a great difference in results. With the other 4, football is the number one sport in that country where as for these two leagues it is way down the pecking order.

Table 14 – Summary of Facebook results for the up and coming leagues

League Total likes How many people talking about it


MLS 4,150,395 166,834 585A-League 599,646 49,277 251

Total likes

As you can see from the results there is a big gap in the amount of likes between both leagues. You do have to take into account that the MLS has 19 teams where as the A-League only has 10. Also the USA has 313.9 million people where as Australia only has 22.6 million.

If you look closely into the MLS details you will see that LA galaxy and Chivas on their own have over 700,000 likes so that actually beats all of the A-league teams.For the A league only two teams have over 100,000 likes the rest average 50-60 thousand likes. Which for a small league is understandable.

How many people talking about it?

As you can see there is still a big gap between these two leagues with the MLS having over a 100,000 more people talking about the teams in that league than the

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A-League. But also as you can see from table 14 is that the top teams table shows that they are still miles ahead with over a million more people talking about it.

Posts in the last week

It’s a turkey for the MLS over the A-League as once again it has a higher amount of posts per week than the A-League does.

In the MLS the teams are ranging from 15-52 and on average each MLS team posts 30 per week, where as in the A-League they range from 17 to 37 with an average of 25 posts per team per week, which for a small league isn’t bad as it does keep their fans in the loop of what is going on. The one good thing is that if you compare these two to the big teams even though on average they don’t post as much, there teams do post more than some of the big teams, that in itself shows that teams in these leagues do care about their fans.

Figure 1 below shows every team and the total likes each league has from their fans. As you can clearly see there is a huge difference not only between the top four teams and the bottom 2 teams but also between the top two and the second two teams.

Premier League

LA Liga Serie A Bun-desliga

MLS A-League

132376844119408184

4231838628420287

4150395 599646

Total likes

Figure 1- Total Likes for each league

City’s in which they are most popular

What’s interesting about these results are the fact that some teams aren’t as popular in their own city but in a city that is in another country.

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Premier league

What’s intriguing here is that the top most liked teams in the premiership have more popularity in Bangkok then they do in England. The exception to this is Hull city as they are more popular in Cairo than in Hull, which seems a strange anomaly. However the answer to this is that is an Egyptian millionaire owns the club, perhaps explaining its popularity in Cairo!

Bundesliga

There is only one team in the Bundesliga that has more popularity outside of the city where they play their football. Bayern Munich is more popular in Cairo than they are in Germany. This result is understandable as they are at the moment the best team in the world and that many migrants live and work within Germany.

Serie A

It is the same in Serie A, as it is in the Bundesliga only one team has on outside popularity and that is AC Milan who like Bayern Munich are also more popular in Cairo. But in this case it isn’t to do with how good they are at the minute but more how popular they are all over the world with their global status.

La Liga

La Liga has thrown some of my initial assumptions out of the water; the results showed that the teams that had a high amount of likes were more popular in foreign cities than in their country/city. I can understand Barcelona and Real Madrid being popular in foreign cities due to their worldwide fame. But the findings show Real Sociedad and Villarreal being more popular in Mexico City rather than in Spain, which does add a spanner to the results as they don’t have any significant likes and their owner’s aren’t South American. However South and Central America have strong cultural and linguistic links with Spain and research also shows that these two teams have Mexican galácticos who play for them which could mean fans in Mexico want to know how well their own players are doing.UD Almería also through up a shock by being more popular in Bangkok, once again they have little amount of likes compared to the big teams, but yet they are more popular in Thailand than in Spain. It would be interesting to find out why they are but it doesn’t fit in with the scope of the study and would have to be looked at in a further study.

MLS and A-league

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The reason these two leagues are together is the fact that the results show that each team is popular in the city where they play, thus meaning that those teams haven’t gained enough international popularity yet.

Twitter results

Premier leagueTable 15 – Premier league stage 2 Twitter results

Team Number of tweets Number of followers

Arsenal 30,400 3,640,000

Aston Villa 24,000 259,000

Cardiff City 20,300 109,000

Chelsea 33,900 3,550,000

Crystal palace 26,200 93,300

Everton 34,400 355,000

Fulham 16,900 214,000

Hull city 17,600 83.700

Liverpool 30,900 2.480,000

Manchester City 57,500 1.600,000

Manchester United 5,096 3.130,000

Newcastle United 20,400 357,000

Norwich City 26,000 185,000

Southampton 26,200 200,000

Stoke City 7,263 181,000

Sunderland 28,700 217,000

Swansea City 9,830 9,830

Tottenham Hotspur 9,830 788,000

West Bromwich Albion 12,100 129,000

West Ham United 21,200 272,000

Total 458,719 17,769,214

BundesligaTable 16 – Bundesliga stage 2 Twitter results

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Bayer Leverkusen 7,169 66,400

Bayern Munich 10,700 979,000

Borussia Dortmund 16,100 834,000

Borussia Monchengladbach 2,796 72,700

Eintracht Braunschweig 2,161 18,900

Eintracht Frankfurt 8,194 43,800

FC Augsburg 2,070 28,000

FC Nurnberg 13,300 53,300

Hamburg 7,347 112,000

Hoffenheim 1,762 31,600

Mainz 3,367 33,500

SC Freiburg 682 36,700

Schalke 14,500 167,000

Stuttgart 8,488 63,500

Werder Bremen 15,100 101,000

Wolfsburg 13,100 50,300

Hannover 96 7,746 61,300

Hertha Berlin 6,640 44,400

Total 141,222 2,797,400

Serie ATable 17 – Serie A stage 2 Twitter results


AC Milan 27,800 1,840,000

Atalanta 7,377 33,100

Bologna 774 36,800

Cagliari 2,729 33,800

Catania 3,638 26,200

Chievo 10,100 30,500

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Fiorentina 8,761 107,000

Genoa 9,938 51,300

Inter Milan 43,900 497,00

Juventus 14,500 1,060,000

Lazio 5,147 93,300

Livorno N/A N/A

Napoli 8,426 288K

Parma 12,200 39,800

Roma 17,000 344,000

Sampdoria 13,100 43,100

Sassuolo 3,238 27,200

Torino 3,269 50,900

Udinese 16,200 43,200

Verona 4,849 4,849

Total 212,946 3,865,049

La LigaTable 18 – La Liga stage 2 Twitter results


Almeria 10,400 45,600

Athletic Bilbao 35,700 268,000

Atletico Madrid 25,800 645,000

Barcelona 23,600 11,300,000

Celta Vigo 11,400 92,800

Elche 15,500 50,200

Espanyol 16,700 78,800

Getafe 6,941 19,900

Granada 15,000 80,300

Levante 27,100 75,400

Malaga 19,500 243,000

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Osasuna 22,300 73,000

Rayo Vallecano 10,100 81,300

Real Betis 32,900 183,000

Real Madrid 39,300 10,500,000

Real Sociedad 38,400 134,000

Real Valladolid 14,800 75,300

Sevilla 24,500 213,000

Valencia 43,300 364,000

Villarreal 26,800 109,000

Total 460,041 24,631,600

MLSTable 19 – MLS stage 2 Twitter results


Chicago 19,400 53,000

Chivas USA 15,400 49,300

Colorado 18,100 28,500

Columbus 27,600 46,700

DC United 19,600 60,500

FC Dallas 18,200 37,500

Houston 19,700 72,300

Kansas City 25,200 79,700

Los Angeles 28,100 160,000

Montreal Impact 26,200 50,000

New England 11,500 34,300

New York Red Bulls 17,600 95,900

Philadelphia Union 24,700 47,900

Portland Timbers 22,100 59,900

Real Salt Lake 54,200 37,200

San Jose 15,100 50,600

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Seattle Sounders FC 20,100 100,000

Toronto FC 25,100 71,100

Vancouver Whitecaps 20,800 59,600

Total 428,700 1,194,000

A-LeagueTable 20 – A-League stage 2 Twitter results


Adelaide United 6,842 13,700

Brisbane Roar 14,100 17,200

Central Coast Mariners 12,800 10,900

Melbourne Heart 13,600 18,700

Melbourne Victory 17,600 30,700

Newcastle Jets 12,000 18,200

Perth Glory 8,990 13,100

Sydney FC 17,000 37,800

Wellington Phoenix 6,698 12,600


7,520 19,900

Total 117,150 192,800

Twitter analysis Once again it is clear that the football industry has taken to social media to engage their fans. With only one team not having a twitter page it is clear that twitter is the most used by all the clubs. What will be interesting is to see if the league with the highest amount of followers gives the fans the most interaction.

Table 21 – Summary of Twitter results for all the leagues

League Number of tweets Number of followers

La Liga 460,041 24,631,600

Premier League 458,719 17,769,214

Serie A 212,946 3,865,049

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Bundesliga 141,222 2,797,400

MLS 428,700 1,194,000

A-League 117,150 192,800

Number of followers

As you can see from the graph below the La Liga has the most followers by a significant number. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they interact with the fans the most. The closest league to the La Liga is the premier league but it is way off with 7 million less followers. Then there is a massive drop between the top two and the rest of the leagues. Serie A is in third place with only 3.8 million followers, which is nothing, compared to their Facebook likes.The Bundesliga is in fourth and is close to the Serie A with only 900,000 followers the difference.The MLS is in fifth position which was to be expected as it is still over 1.5 million followers behind the Bundesliga and still way off competing with the big leagues, but yet it trounces the A-league as they have very little in terms of followers who only have 192,000 followers. This was always going to be the case, as it is not as popular as the other leagues.

Premier league

Bun-desliga

Serie A La Liga A-League MLS

17769214

2797400 3865049

24631600

192800 1194000

Followers

Figure 2- Total followers for each league

Number of tweetsLa Liga has the most tweets with a huge 460 thousand, this shows that they do care about their fans and want to make sure that they are well informed. It is a close

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contest for “top tweeter” as the premier league is only just over 1000 tweets behind them yet they have over 7 million less followers.The major shock in the results is the MLS, they have just fewer than 1.2 million followers and yet the clubs have tweeted just under 430 thousand times. Looking at the results in terms of followers to tweets, the MLS gives the fans a lot more communication than any other league.With the MLS being third, Serie A drops in the table by only tweeting fans 212 thousand times. This isn’t good for a popular league, as fans aren’t getting enough information to keep them happy. Another shock from the results is that the Bundesliga has only tweeted fewer than 25,000 tweets more than the A-League. Which if you look at how many fans they having following compared to tweets posted, the A-league is giving their fans what they want, and that is more communication.

Premier league

Bun-desliga


458719

141222

212946

460041

117150

428700

Tweets

Figure 3- Total amount of tweets from each league

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YouTube results YouTube isn’t considered one of the main social networks but it is necessary for this study, as football is all about viewing, and YouTube allows the clubs to show highlights of games, interviews etc. This study was to prove if clubs have been successful in using this type of media to promote themselves to fans. A recorded was kept of the numbers of subscribers, views and weekly videos posted on their channel.

Premier leagueTable 22 – Premier League stage 2 YouTube results

Team Subscribers Views Weekly Videos (last week)

Arsenal N/A N/A N/A

Aston Villa 6,257 1,248,355 7

Cardiff City 4,353 833,117 4

Chelsea 311,224 72,046,281 9

Crystal palace 8,523 6,725,711 1

Everton 15,100 2,858,475 11

Fulham 5,978 6,370,066 4

Hull city 2,958 774,954 10

Liverpool 227,862 31,404,034 3

Manchester City 254,242 118,209,515 17

Manchester United N/A N/A N/A

Newcastle United 4,193 469,761 0

Norwich City 3,426 1,141,378 19

Southampton 11,876 3,787,832 9

Stoke City 2,337 209,045 2

Sunderland N/A N/A N/A

Swansea City 7,143 2,489,482 15

Tottenham Hotspur 69,276 17,207,824 5


4,685 2,067,471 10

West Ham United 5,926 780,640 4

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Total 945,359 268,623,941 130

BundesligaTable 23 – Bundesliga stage 2 YouTube results


Bayer Leverkusen 153 3,003 1

Bayern Munich 146,461 25,873,877 18

Borussia Dortmund 65,838 11,262,907 7

Borussia Monchengladbach 9,684 3,061,803 3

Eintracht Frankfurt 5,945 1,334,779 0

FC Augsburg 1,568 375,104 5

Hamburger SV 14,978 3,947,964 1

Hannover 96 6,431 2,595,494 4

Hertha Berlin 9,779 3,434,695 12

Mainz 05 809 111,252 1

FC Nurnberg 6,447 2,328,442 6

SC Freiburg 4,434 1,703,973 7

Schalke 04 39,132 10,933,888 0

TSG Hoffenheim 1,757 271,558 4

Eintracht Braunschweig N/A N/A N/A

Vfb Stuttgart 9,148 2,413,843 3

Vfl Wolfsburg 712 150,083 0

Werder Bremen 15,326 4,304,185 5

Total 338,602 74,106,850 77

Serie ATable 24 – Serie A stage 2 YouTube results


AC Milan 218,251 100,353,712 8

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Atalanta 1,611 406,465 2Bologna 2,019 1,829,647 2Cagliari 1,230 40,049 0Catania N/A N/A N/AChievo 2,755 N/A 11Fiorentina 7,953 2,402,859 8Genoa N/A N/A N/AInter Milan 115,587 24,786,411 17Juventus 257,759 64,378,097 3Lazio 20,509 2,851,004 2Livorno N/A N/A N/ANapoli 36,542 2,558,939 1Parma 2,962 1,685,224 9Roma 76,083 10,093,817 1Sampdoria 6,180 4,588,630 1Sassuolo 1,345 645,085 4Torino 6,087 1,748,958 10Udinese 967 142,276 4Verona 2,977 1,468,887 13Total 760,817 219,980,060 96

La LigaTable 25 – La Liga stage 2 YouTube results


UD Almería 170 14,436 0Athletic Bilbao 6,963 1,349,599 13Atletico Madrid 44,306 6,558,214 3Barcelona 1,295,355 234,094,679 65Real Club Celta de Vigo

865 33,567 0

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Elche 830 139,630 4Espanyol 3,066 2,408,400 11Getafe 424 15,776 1Granada 917 139,799 2Levante 2,982 1,613,170 5Málaga 4,728 1,542,835 9Osasuna 1,160 145,831 5Rayo Vallecano 2,624 764,271 6Real Betis 9,379 2,160,881 14Real Madrid 1,122,438 140,373,916 28Real Sociedad 5,585 2,336,040 20Real Valladolid 1,030 793,979 0Sevilla 7,888 3,964,060 17Valencia 11,253 3,690,106 28Villarreal 4,199 560,630 4Total 2,526,162 402,699,819 235

A-LeagueTable 26 – A-League stage 2 YouTube results


Adelaide United 505 60,377 3Brisbane Roar 855 347,977 0Central Coast Mariners

222 32,806 0

Melbourne Heart 864 246,312 6Melbourne Victory

2,895 730,431 4

Newcastle Jets 309 42,742 0Perth Glory 471 93,708 0Sydney FC 644 111,418 0Wellington 200 18,100 0

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PhoenixWestern Sydney Wanderers

884 22,247 0

Total 7849 1,706,118 13

MLSTable 27 – MLS stage 2 YouTube results


Chicago Fire 2,248 664,605 16Chivas USA 1,787 1,243,394 6Colorado Rapids 1,007 307,130 0Columbus Crew 1,469 639,084 8DC United 2,525 3,497,413 3FC Dallas 2,725 2,466,043 10Houston dynamo

3,098 1,120,175 5

Sporting Kansas City

8,483 2,165,517 14

LA Galaxy 9,895 3,872,343 5Montreal Impact 4,182 1,307,680 4New England Revolution

1,904 644,514 5

New York Red Bulls

3,717 1,139,662 3

Philadelphia Union

726 92,598 3

Portland Timbers

4,254 1,171,009 4

Real Salt Lake 3,322 1,384,062 7San Jose Earthquakes

2,473 5,303,587 0

Seattle Sounders FC

6,455 4,043,690 15

Toronto FC 3,596 1,345,131 16

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Vancouver Whitecaps

5,149 4,161,938 8

Total 69,015 26,569,575 132

YouTube AnalysisThe best way to look at how good this site is for clubs is to look at how many views their videos are getting, as this shows how many times people have viewed their material.

Premier league

Bun-desliga


268623941

74106850

219980060

402699819

170611826569575

YouTube Views

Figure 4- Each Leagues YouTube views

The graph above shows the number of views that each league teams have had. As you can see the La Liga has the highest amount. It is surprising that it has over 150 million more views than the premier league, which again is in second place. But looking deeper into the La Liga table you will notice that Barcelona has 234,094,679 just on there own which even the bottom 3 leagues for views added together wouldn’t beat. It is surprising that the MLS has 26 million views seeing as football isn’t there top sport and that even being a new league it shows the growth that the teams have by using social media. Looking at the A-League it shows that they are not a big league with only 1.7 million views, which with every other league, it is what each team on average is gaining.

The second method is to look at how many subscribers each team have. The best way to do that is to compare the leagues and to see who is able to entice their fans into subscribing

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Premier league

Bun-desliga


945359

338602

760817

2526162

7849 69015

Subscribers

Figure 5 – Amount of subscribers for each league

Figure 5 shows a graph with the number of subscribers each league has accumulated, As you can see once again the La Liga has the most subscribers, what is unexpected is how significantly the amount of subscribers they have compered to the rest of the leagues. Teams in the La Liga are able to turn a massive 62% of their viewers into subscribers. The second highest is the Premier league with 945,359 subscribers which is an average return of 35% of viewers turn into subscribers. In third is Serie A which has a decent amount of subscribers but what is interesting that even though they are just under 200 million behind the premier league teams in Serie A turn 34% of viewers into subscribers. Quite far behind the top 3 is the Bundesliga with 338,602 subscribers, which is unexpected as they are one of the best leagues yet don’t have a high fan base on social media sites. Even though they have a small amount compared to the other 3 leagues they are able to turn 45% of viewers into subscribers, which is better than, the premier league and Serie A. The MLS has only 69,015 subscribers, yet it does beat the A-league by quite a way but it is nowhere near the top leagues as it only has 25% viewers that turn into subscribers. The biggest shock is the A-League. Even though they only have 7,849 subscribers yet the produce a hug 46% of viewers into subscribers.Looking at it from a conversion point of you, the La Liga takes the title with turning 62% of viewers but in second place is the A-League with 46% this is a remarkable achievement as it shows that you don’t have to be a top league to get fans to turn into subscribers. Just behind that with 45% of converters is the Bundesliga. Then the Premier league with 35%, which is, followed closely behind by the Serie A with 34%. And with the least amount of converters is the MLS with a very low conversion rate of 25%.

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How many videos do they post per week?In the figure below you can see that the La Liga has a clean sweep when it comes to using YouTube and how well they use it. The data below is taken on the same day using the previous weeks posts.The most surprising result is the MLS teams with posting the second highest videos in the last week. Beating the Premier league teams by 2 videos. This shows that the league is trying to engage more fans by giving them more insight of the club on and off the field. The big disbelief is the A-League with only posting 13 videos and yet it has a high percentage of converters. This shows that as an A League fan they don’t get enough interaction from their clubs as other fans do. The rest of the leagues do match up with the other results as it shows if a club does posts enough videos then they will get viewed and if fans like what they are getting they will turn into a subscriber so they don’t miss out.

Premier league

Bun-desliga


130

7796

235

13

132

Video posts

Figure 6 – Each leagues video post in the last week

This chart below gives of a good visualisation of what the difference is in percentage as you can see the La Liga posted 35% of the 683 videos that were posted which is a huge amount and shows that they really do keep their fans involved with their clubs.

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19%

11%

14%34%

2%19%

Video PostsPremier league Bundesliga Serie ALa Liga A-League MLS

Figure 7- shows the amount of videos that each league posts

Stage 3 Results

This stage of the research looks to see if the teams that have social media, integrate it with their official website. The tables below show each team, gives the official website URL and gives a result whether their site showed social media links. Having gone through all 107 teams websites the results were surprising. Out of the 107 only 2 teams didn’t have a social media presence, which gave a 98% conversion of teams integrating social media.

When collecting the data it was easy to see that most had cross-channelled at least 2 social media sites. These were Facebook and Twitter.

The two teams that didn’t show any social media on their website were West Ham and Western Sydney Wanderers. What is interesting here is that West Ham are a big club and yet don’t think it is necessary to cross channel their social sites. As part of the study an email was sent to West Ham to see if they could shed some light on why they don’t have any social media on their site, but there was no reply. The other surprise was the Western Sydney Wanderers. The reason why is because the A-league teams official site are all located on the A-league website, so they have the same structure and layout. But yet every other team promoted at least Facebook on their site apart from the Western Sydney Wanderers.

Livorno doesn’t have any social media pages but yet they do cross channel marketing, the way they do this is by having a Facebook/Twitter share app on their official site. And what they want the fans to do is to share their official site on their own page to gather interest from their friends. It is clever in a way but makes you wonder why don’t they have any social media sites themselves.

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Premier leagueTable 28 – Premier League stage 3 results

Team Official site URL Social media link presence

Arsenal http://www.arsenal.com/home YesAston Villa http://www.avfc.co.uk/ YesCardiff City http://www.cardiffcityfc.co.uk/ YesChelsea http://www.chelseafc.com/ YesCrystal Palace http://www.cpfc.co.uk/ YesEverton http://www.evertonfc.com/ YesFulham http://www.fulhamfc.com/ YesHull City http://www.hullcitytigers.com/ YesLiverpool http://www.liverpoolfc.com/

welcome-to-liverpool-fcYes

Manchester City http://www.mcfc.co.uk/ YesManchester United

http://www.manutd.com/Splash-Page.aspx

Yes

Newcastle United

http://www.nufc.co.uk/page/Welcome/

Yes

Norwich City http://www.canaries.co.uk/ YesSouthampton http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/ YesStoke City http://www.stokecityfc.com/ YesSunderland http://www.safc.com/ YesSwansea City http://www.swanseacity.net/ YesTottenham Hotspur

http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/home/

Yes


http://www.wba.co.uk/ Yes

West Ham United

http://www.whufc.com/page/Home

No

BundesligaTable 29 – Bundesliga stage 3 results

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Bayer Leverkusen http://www.bayer04.de/B04-ENG/en/_site_index.aspx

Yes

Bayern Munich http://www.fcbayern.de/en/ YesBorussia Dortmund http://www.bvb.de/eng YesBorussia Monchengladbach

http://www.borussia.de/english/home.html

Yes

Eintracht Frankfurt http://www.eintracht.de/aktuell/ YesFC Augsburg http://fcaugsburg.de/ YesHamburger SV http://www.hsv.de/en/news/ YesHannover 96 http://www.hannover96.de/

CDA/en-home.htmlYes

Hertha Berlin http://www.herthabsc.de/en/ YesMainz 05 http://www.mainz05.de/

mainz05/home.htmlYes

FC Nurnberg http://www.fcn.de/en/home/ YesSC Freiburg http://www.scfreiburg.com/ YesSchalke 04 http://www.schalke04.de/en/ YesTSG Hoffenheim http://www.achtzehn99.de/ YesEintracht Braunschweig

http://www.eintracht.com/en/start/

Yes

Vfb Stuttgart http://www.vfb.de/en/ YesVfl Wolfsburg https://www.vfl-wolfsburg.de/

en/info.htmlYes

Werder Bremen https://www.werder.de/en/ Yes

Serie ATable 30 – Serie A stage 3 results


AC Milan https://www.acmilan.com/en Yes

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Atalanta http://www.atalanta.it/ YesBologna http://www.bolognafc.it/ YesCagliari http://www.cagliaricalcio.net/home.html YesCatania http://www.ilcalciocatania.it/ YesChievo http://www.chievoverona.it/en YesFiorentina http://en.violachannel.tv/ YesGenoa http://genoacfc.it/ YesInter Milan http://www.inter.it/en/hp YesJuventus http://www.juventus.com/juve/en/home YesLazio http://www.sslazio.it/ YesLivorno http://www.livornocalcio.it/home/

home.phpYes

Napoli http://www.sscnapoli.it/prehome/html/default.html

Yes

Parma http://fcparma.com/home?lang=en YesRoma http://www.asroma.it/ YesSampdoria https://www.sampdoria.it/ YesSassuolo http://www.sassuolocalcio.it/ YesTorino http://www.torinofc.it/ YesUdinese http://www.udinese.it/portal/IT/handle/?

page=homepageYes

Verona http://www.hellasverona.it/ Yes

La LigaTable 31 – La Liga stage 3 results


UD Almería

http://www.udalmeriasad.com/en_GB Yes

Athletic Bilbao

http://www.athletic-club.net/web/main.asp?a=0&b=0&c=0&d=0&idi=1

Yes

Atletico http://en.clubatleticodemadrid.com/ Yes

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MadridBarcelona http://www.fcbarcelona.com/ YesReal Club Celta de Vigo

http://www.celtavigo.net/en/ Yes

Elche http://www.elchecf.es/en_GB YesEspanyol http://www.rcdespanyol.com/

principal.php?idioma=2Yes

Getafe http://www.getafecf.com/Home.aspx YesGranada http://www.granadacf.es/en/home YesLevante http://es.levanteud.com/ YesMálaga http://www.malagacf.com/en YesOsasuna http://www.osasuna.es/ YesRayo Vallecano

http://www.rayovallecano.es/en_GB Yes

Real Betis http://www.realbetisbalompie.es/es/ YesReal Madrid

http://www.realmadrid.com/en Yes

Real Sociedad

http://www.realsociedad.com/ Yes

Real Valladolid

http://www.realvalladolid.es/ Yes

Sevilla http://www.sevillafc.es/nuevaweb/inicio YesValencia http://en.valenciacf.com/ YesVillarreal http://www.villarrealcf.es/en/ Yes

MLSTable 32 – MLS stage 3 results


Chicago Fire http://www.chicago-fire.com/ YesChivas USA http://www.cdchivasusa.com/ Yes

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Colorado Rapids http://www.coloradorapids.com/ YesColumbus Crew http://www.thecrew.com/ YesDC United http://www.dcunited.com/ YesFC Dallas http://www.fcdallas.com/ YesHouston dynamo http://

www.houstondynamo.com/Yes

Sporting Kansas City http://www.sportingkc.com/ YesLA Galaxy http://www.lagalaxy.com/ YesMontreal Impact http://

www.impactmontreal.com/frYes

New England Revolution

http://www.revolutionsoccer.net/

Yes

New York Red Bulls http://www.newyorkredbulls.com/

Yes

Philadelphia Union http://www.philadelphiaunion.com/

Yes

Portland Timbers http://www.timbers.com/ YesReal Salt Lake http://www.realsaltlake.com/ YesSan Jose Earthquakes http://www.sjearthquakes.com/ YesSeattle Sounders FC http://www.soundersfc.com/ YesToronto FC http://www.torontofc.ca/ YesVancouver Whitecaps http://www.whitecapsfc.com/ Yes

A-LeagueTable 33 – A-League stage 3 results


Adelaide United http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/adelaideunited

Yes

Brisbane Roar http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/brisbaneroar

Yes

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Central Coast Mariners

http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/centralcoastmariners

Yes

Melbourne Heart http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/melbourneheart

Yes

Melbourne Victory http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/melbournevictory

Yes

Newcastle Jets http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/newcastlejets

Yes

Perth Glory http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/perthglory

Yes

Sydney FC http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/sydneyfc

Yes

Wellington Phoenix http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/wellingtonphoenix

Yes


http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/wswanderersfc

No

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Evaluation of results, implications and future studies

Evaluation of results and implications

The evaluation of the results aims to look at if the results found coincide with what the aims of the study set out to achieve.

The results of the study show that social media usage has a big difference between the top leagues around the world and the up and coming less established clubs who have less international or global recognition.

Twitter was the surprise social network to have the widest spread usage, as every team bar one used it to communicate with fans, Facebook was still up their with a wide amount of usage but there were a few teams in the European leagues that didn’t have a Facebook page. YouTube gave the most varied results yes it had 93.4% of teams using it but in some cases it didn’t have the big clubs and wasn’t used as frequently.

Facebook results have showed that this is the best way to interact with fans as it had more likes then twitter had followers and is the most used by football teams. Another aspect as to why Facebook is a better social network for fans is that they can then interact with other fans on the comments section, which then gets fans talking about that team and so on which is acts like a domino effect.

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Twitter results show that even though they don’t have as many followers as Facebook it is used by every club bar one that didn’t have a social media existence. The main surprise was especially in Germany seeing as Social Media Makes Strides in Germany (2013) state that Twitter is used by only 21% of people yet every German club uses it. What is good about twitter is that the up and coming leagues have taken to it much more than the big leagues by looking at the results, they post considerably more on twitter than they do on any other platform and even beat the top leagues by ratio of how many tweets to followers.

YouTube Is the most diverse of the entire networking site, it is mainly for videos of the previous match highlights or press conferences and in some teams cases wasn’t updated regularly but yet there was still a very high amount of views for each league.

The findings from the study do suggest that the majority of footballs across the world are using the power of social media to reach a greater audience and increase the national, international and global profile of the club. This is supported by the Facebook results showing that some teams are more popular in foreign cities than in their own, together with the amount of people that talk about a particular club. Although Europe has the top leagues, their presence on social media isn’t as high as America and Australian leagues, even though football is the major sport in these European countries.

What was clear from the study is that the MLS and the A-league clubs all have a presence on each social media site, the other leagues do have a high presence but there are a few teams that let them down and fail to use social media to its full effect. So when it comes to making greater use of social media and having a high profile presence, the up and coming and less established league teams take the title. Also when it comes to the most successful teams in utilising social media the lower league teams communicate more with their fan base and this can be split into three sections.

Facebook: looking at the results the premier league by far has the most likes and has the most amount of people talking about teams that play in the league. But its Serie A that gives the most interaction with their fans by posting the most during the week.Twitter: La Liga takes the title hands down; it has the most followers and represents that by tweeting the most.

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YouTube: Once again La Liga takes the title with its teams posting the most videos in a week, they gain the most views from it and to top it of have a huge amount of subscribers.

Overall when it coms to which league offers their fans the most it goes to La Liga, you know that as a fan you will get more information from your team on average than from any other league in the world.

For the teams that have a strong social media presence they should look to expand further by carrying on as they are, maybe post more during the week but other than that they will still gain a influx of people every day if they carry on posting.

For the leagues that do not, the challenge is to entice more people into following their clubs. The more posts they put up the more people begin to talk about them and as a result they will gain a wider publicity for their club.

There is one downside from the results that we can clearly see, in that if they are a global team then they get the likes, followers and subscribers, even if they don’t post a lot. So it is hard for the lower teams to gain more followers as they don’t have any big brand players or in the case of the A-league they don’t have a high standard of football to entice more fans to follow them on social media.

Further studies

To fully understand the use of social media in the football industry, the study would need to include a lot more leagues. By doing so the results of which is the best league to communicate with fans could be different even if it isn’t the top league.

This study wasn’t completely fair on the A-league and its teams, as it was never going to compete with the big leagues. So an interesting study would be to see what level that league is competing at. An example would be to compare lower English leagues to the A-league and see where the A-league match’s in comparison.

It would be interesting looking into more social media sites not just 3 as then you can get a wide range of results; the ones that could be included are Google+ and Linkedin. By including these we will establish who is utilising social media more as these two aren’t the main three social media sites.

A very interesting study would be to see how well they use of social media has had an impact on sales. The study would be conducted over a month and it would be to

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see if more posts, tweets and videos were put online in this space of time, would it generate more revenue for the football team.

An additional study could be conducted to see if people would be more likely to support a team because of their social activities. The study would use questionnaires to gather the data from a mix of people; from the die-hard football fans to people that have no interest in it at all. Then once the results have been gathered and analysed we would find the answer to the question.

With there being a time constraint on the study the results were only collected over a week, however this is a fair test but to make sure we get better results in future the data collected would be over a month, that way every team would be guarantied to have a match day where most posts/tweets are posted.

A Serie A team Livorno didn’t have any social media presence at all; it was the only one out of all teams not to have one. So it would be interesting to find out why they don’t have social media and to try and convince them to use social media. The main reason why this research would be done is due to them wanting you to promote their official site using Facebook and Twitter. They have apps that let you share their official site, which is weird considering they don’t have them themselves.After finding out on Facebook that some teams were more popular in other cities than the one they are based in, it would be fascinating to find out why they are. Maybe it was due to the results being taken on that particular day, or the time it was taken or in fact cultural ties with the club. Either way the results gained would give a great insight into the football industry.

An interesting study would to conduct the same research as done now but to take out the top teams in the league, if they are globally recognised. That way they study conducted would gave an interesting view to see without the top teams how popular would the league and how far behind are the up and coming leagues to the lower teams in the top divisions.

Reflection on project

Overall the study has proved a successful one, the aims have all been achieved as the results found that football teams are using social media and they all are interacting with their fans constantly on Facebook and Twitter. YouTube wasn’t used quite as much but the teams that didn’t post much on YouTube did on the other sites. And yes every team did do cross channel marketing apart from two which one didn’t have social media and the other I have emailed but haven’t got a reply.

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If I was to do this study again I would make sure I have a longer period of time for my results, this would then give me a better insight into social media in football. Another thing that I would differently is to contact clubs that don’t have a social media site and to see why they didn’t have any presence on the specific social network.

The study was done efficiently and within the timescale set, with all the objectives completed. The research conduct has been very successful into giving an insight of how well football teams are using social media and to see which league is giving their fans the best interaction. By using the data collected you gain an insight of what the top teams are doing and how other teams can improve and give their fans more.

Conclusion

This study aimed to explore the use of social media amongst football teams, in the Premier league, the Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, MLS and the A-league. The primary research was to look at all 107 teams and to establish to what extent social media was being used by teams and how well they were doing with regards to using it. The study found that out of the 107 teams that everyone bar one used social media, whether it was on just 1 site or all 3. The deeper the study went the more the data showed about the usage of social media, with every club posting to their fans weekly (with some exceptions). The results varied depending on the league and the teams in it with the better-known leagues having more likes etc. Some teams who are internationally recognised had a considerable amount of more likes, followers and views compared to the lower teams. The thing that really showed was how much of a difference there was between each of the leagues e.g. comparing the A-League to La Liga. As you can see that the clubs in the A-league still have a long way to go in challenging the big leagues. Whether it can be done off the pitch with marketing using social media or by the club themselves gain reputation is to be seen.

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Web viewTable of Contents. Abstract4. Acknowledgments5. Introduction6. Background of the research question6. Literature review7. Growth of social media7. Use of social media

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